My name is Afra, and I am a final-year Politics and International Relations student at the University of Westminster. This blog follows on from my last one, in which I wrote about the history of Uzbekistan and why I decided to travel there. The reason was to take part in the largest Model UN in Central Asia.
The country was remarkably welcoming, especially considering that its borders only opened to tourism around 2017. What struck me most was how easily modernity and history sat side by side. People were paying with QR codes everywhere, which genuinely surprised me. I had assumed that a country without Apple Pay would not have moved to QR-based payments either. Hotel Uzbekistan, a landmark dating back to the Soviet era, still stands proudly in Tashkent, but it is no longer the most prestigious place to stay. International chains like Hilton, Ramada and Holiday Inn now sit alongside it, with rooms at the Hilton reaching up to $3,000 a night.
I had heard the country was inexpensive, but living it was something else. A cup of Lipton tea, which costs £1.50 to £2 in London, was 6,000 so’m in Uzbekistan, less than 50p. A ride on Yandex, the most popular taxi app, was £1 to £2 per journey, and a trip to the airport came to around £4. The same fare would cost over £100 in London. It quietly blew my London mind.
Beyond Tashkent, we also travelled to Samarkand, home to the Shah-i-Zinda, a necropolis holding the graves of soldiers who fought for the Islamic cause. I learned on the day that the number of stones placed at a grave reflected the importance of the person buried there. It is the kind of detail you only pick up by being there.
The Model UN itself brought together more than 400 delegates from around the world, with participants from neighbouring countries as well as from Japan and the United Kingdom. Over three days, I sat in the UNESCO committee representing South Africa, where we debated how to preserve cultural heritage in an era of rapid modernisation. The question felt especially alive given where we were.
My time in Uzbekistan was one of the best experiences I have had, for two reasons. The first is that I had met some Uzbek students at the DEN conference the year before, which meant I already knew some of the organisers when I arrived. The second is the group I travelled with: people I first met at the weekly DEN meetings and have built real friendships with over time. I hope to return next year.
Afra Bhuiyan