How Time Flies!

We’re at a city called Aktau in far west Kazakhstan, and the shipping port to depart to Azerbaijan.

The last notes were while we were in Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan.

But let’s stay in Tashkent, Uzbekistan for a while longer. One day, a Friday, while we waited for our Iran Letters Of Introduction to come through, (LOI), we went for a walk through the city park.

Our target was a small theatre, known for its revolutionary theme plays. In fact the theatre’s director/owner was assassinated in the ’70s by a radical due to his anti-Islamic stance and themes! To its credit, the theatre continues to provide thought provoking and extreme views on Uzbekisan society. The theatre is called Ilkom and seats 120 people. It sits underneath an ugly fancy-pants hotel.

Anyway, the afternoon we got there, the lady said not to go that night, but come back Sunday night, to a different play, as there would be English sub-titles, and we would understand the play better. Good advice. We bought tickets then continued on our walk and this brought us to a modern football and athletic stadium. No security around, so we walked into the arena. Assorted athletes running, jumping, throwing, etc.

It turned out like the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport), where lots of codes were training. Two blokes were running around the 400m running track, tied together, fast, very fast. This seemed weird to me at first, until I saw that one of them was blind. I was captivated to see these two athletes run way faster, and longer, than most people. On one lap past me, I acknowledged the sighted runner, with a warm look. He simply nodded and smiled, and they kept on. I’ve found that moment one of my fondest memories of this country.

We walked into the centre pitch area, a ground as good as any first class field in Australia. Across from us a hurdler was practicing by just bunny hopping over the hurdles, and he agreed to give me a race, him bunny hopping, me “sprinting” beside the hurdles. I beat him. Barry got it on film to prove my prowess.

Smiles all round. He could just walk up to a hurdle and sort of “pop” over it, like his shoes had go-gadget springs. Amazing. Another group were running up the seating access stairs on one leg. Hopping up to the top! The athletes were friendly, the coaches were proud, and we had a lovely time wandering around. It turned out the Uzbekistan National football (soccer) team were running around as well, but more of that in a minute.

So we went outside the oval area and there was a great big bunch of blokes milling about some tables. Like bees to a honey pot, we approached, and bugger me, a few fellows were selling tickets to next week’s Football World Cup Qualifier for the 2018 World Cup at this ground, between Uzbekistan and North Korea. So we bought four tickets, near the halfway, for 15000 som each ($USD 2.65) and counted ourselves lucky.

To read about the Football game in Tashkent please visit: Tashkent Futball