WELCOME TO UZBEKISTAN

WELCOME TO UZBEKISTAN

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For those who do not know, Uzbek cuisine is one of the most colorful of Oriental Cuisines. You''ll be amazed to find some of the Uzbek recipes are centuries old. They even have various traditional rituals and ways of the preparing and cooking. There are about 1,000 different dishes and these includes national drinsks, cakes and condectionary products.
Uzbek plov is a very solemn dish. It can be considered an everyday dish as well as dish for solemn and great events like weddings, parties and holidays. Rise is the most important componentof plov and special spices, raisins, peas or quins will be added to give it extra flavour. It makes this dish very tasty and useful especially after long illnesses. However, locals believe that the best plov is always prepared by a man! Salads are served as additional dishes to the plov.
Bread is considered to be holy for the Uzbek people. this traditional belief started in the ancient times and there''s a legend behind this. The legend claims that each new Governor would mint his own coins but the payment for the local people for minting new coins were not the coins that were minted but...bread!
According to traditional, when someone leaves the family he bites a small piece of Obi-non (Uzbek bread) and then it is buried untill the traveller comes back and eat the whole bread. The tradition of putting bread into a basket on the head also shows respectful attitude towards the bread.
Traditionally Uzbek breads are baked inside the stoves made of clay called tandyr. These fragrant breads are known to be crispy and tasty. Even the great scientist of medecine, Avicenna used the Uzbek bread to cure people from diseases.
There are however, two varities of flatbreads - the common and the fancy ones. Common flatbreads (obi-non/uy-non) are baked from wheat flour with leaven. When baked, their surface is glossy and sprinkled with sesame seeds or poppy seeds. The Fancy flatbreads are called "Patyr" and may be made from pastry or puff pastry with mutton fat added to keep it fresh for a long time.
Special importance is placed on soups. Uzbek''s soup is reach with vegetables and seasonings and contains lots of carrots, turnips, onions and greens. Two popular soups available are mastava and shurpa. Other favourite are the shashlyk and samsa.
Samsa (samosas) are also sold in the street, but the quality is variable. Manty are large boiled noodle sacks of meat and shorpa is a meat and vegetable soup. During the summer and autumn there is a wide variety of fruit: grapes, pomegranates, apricots - which are also dried and sold at other times of the year - and dwarfing them all, mountains of honeydew and watermelons.
In general, hotel food shows a strong Russian influence: borcht is a beetroot soup, entrecote is well-done steak, cutlet are grilled meat balls and strogan is the local equivalent of Beef Stroganoff. Pilmeni originated in Ukraine and are small boiled noodle sacks of meat and vegetables, similar to ravioli, sometimes served in a vegetable soup. There are a number of restaurants that serve both European and Korean food (Stalin transported many Koreans from their home in the east of the former Soviet Union, believing them to be a security threat). There is a hard-currency restaurant at the top of the Hotel Uzbekistan that serves Korean and Chinese food.

Drink:
Tea is the staple drink of Central Asia, and chai-khanas (tea houses) can be found almost everywhere in Uzbekistan, full of old men chatting the afternoon away with a pot of tea in the shade. Beer, wine, vodka, brandy and sparkling wine (shampanski) are all widely available in restaurants. Kefir, a thick drinking yoghurt, is often served with breakfast.
Nightlife:
Tashkent has a variety of theaters which show everything from European operas to traditional Uzbek dancing and music. The Navoi theater, opposite the Tashkent Hotel, shows opera and ballet. The prices are low by Western standards; shows generally start at 1800.
Shopping:
The best place to experience Central Asia is in the bazaars. The bazaars of Tashkent and Samarkand offer goods ranging from herbs and spices to Central Asian carpets. A variety of produce is sold. In the Alaiski Bazaar in Tashkent it is possible to buy decorated Uzbek knives. Visitors are advised to take a local who can steer them clear of poor quality goods. Many museums have small shops which sell a variety of modern reproductions and some original items. It is possible to buy carpets and embroidered wall hangings. Bukhara is famous for its gold embroidery, and visitors can buy elaborately embroidered traditional Uzbek hats. Visitors should be aware that it is illegal to export anything more than 100 years old or items which have a cultural significance.
Shopping hours: Food shops open 08:00-17:00, all others open 09:00-19:00.
Sport:
The national sport bushkashi is a team game in which the two mounted teams attempt to deliver a headless and legless goat''s carcass weighing 30-40kg over the opposition''s goal line. Players are allowed to wrestle the goat from an opponent, but physical assault is frowned upon. There is skiing in the mountains above Tashkent. The martial arts, particularly Taekwon-Do, are also popular.
Social Conventions:
Lipioshka (bread) should never be laid upside down and should never be put on the ground, even if it is in a bag. It is normal to remove shoes but not socks when entering someone''s house or sitting down in a chai-khana. Shorts are rarely seen in Uzbekistan and, worn by women, are likely to provoke unwelcome attention from the local male population. Avoid ostentatious displays of wealth (e.g. jewelry) in public places.

The Traditional Crafts :
The applied arts of Uzbekistan is a real cultural and historical phenonmenon. It is well known because of the Uzbek traditions.
The beautiful architectural ensembles of Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva, Tashkent and Ferghana are famous for their pieces of applied arts. Beautiful pieces are created by masters in wood-carving, chasing, lacquered miniatures, embroidery and jewellery plus all the art of the Uzbekistan.
Now the applied arts is not only the ancient art introduced by the Museums. The local population admired the beautiful production and in the 20th century, many walls of houses were decorated with embroideries, carpets, ceramics and chasing. Traditionally, the embroidered carpets were of dark shade of colour.

However, the Uzbek countryside, instead of using the modern style, they use articles of the old applied arts and try to retain the old traditions. Plants and geometrical ornaments were traditionally created in applied arts.
Uzbek ceramics was made famous during the 7th century. The Uzbekistan ceramics is divided into types, namely the white-blue ceramics of the Ferghana Valley and Khorezm and the brown-yellow ceramics of Samarkand and Bukhara. It was found that the Ferghana ceramics were nicer, more beautiful and delicate. The Khoresm ceramics were differed by its strict and geometrical ornamentation.
The skill of chasing is the best left to the Bukhara''s masters because of their unbeatable skills.

For wood-carving, the craftmen from Tashkent and Ferghana Valley are popular for their production of small tables, chairs, boxes, doors, and different souvenirs. Therefore, when in Uzbekistan, you''ll have a lot of choices not only to buy your souvenirs and gifts but also to savour the wonderment of culture and heritage of the Uzbek people
Folk decorative Applied - Arts :
The origins of Uzbek folk art are hidden in the depths of centuries of history. Numerous archeological diggings in rural areas have revealed new aspects of this ancient land and its culture. Uzbek applied art has a wealth of variety when it comes to style, materials and ornamentation. Ceramic, silk and cotton weaving, stone and wood carving, metal engraving, leather stamping, calligraphy and miniature painting are some genres passed down from ancient times. In the past, each region has its own cultural and ethic traditions, these unique features were established by local quilds who strengthened these characteristics through their art. It was possible to recognise where someone came from by his tyubeteyka (embroidered skullcap), the colour and style of his chapan (gown). The embroidery in the house identified the housewife''s or her mother''s birthplace. The development of folk art and craft in Uzbekistan is very important. To encourage and support artists, the Hunardman Union of Folk Craftsmen was established. An Assiciation of Folk Craftsmen called Usto will celebrate its 20th anniversary this year and the scientific industrial center, Musavvir recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.