This year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union and 21 years since the reunification of Germany. While citizens of the USSR and GDR were unable to travel abroad and restricted in domestic travel, foreign travelers were permitted under a controlled ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Uzbekistan
Travel then and now: Travel to the USSR and GDR
This year is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union and 21 years since the reunification of Germany. While citizens of the USSR and GDR were unable to travel abroad and restricted in domestic travel, foreign travelers were permitted under a controlled ...Ten most corrupt countries of the world
You spend every holiday weekend annoyed that you can't talk your way out of a speeding ticket. If only there were some way out of that predicament ... aside from taking your lead foot off the gas, right? You may be out of luck on the New Jersey Turnpike, but there are ...AirBaltic expands, spruces up
Yesterday, Latvian airline AirBaltic launched two new routes: Riga-Madrid and Riga-Beirut.
Riga-based AirBaltic is an airline to watch. Little known in North America, the airline is notable for its low starting fares and the inclusion of most of Europe's most popular ...Cycling the Silk Road
Cycling tours have become increasingly popular in recent years, especially amongst adventure travelers who are looking to explore the world from the seat of their bikes. One of the leaders in organizing these kinds of adventure cycling trips has always been Tour d'Afrique ...Ship graveyards from around the world
Eco-friendly website Environmental Graffiti has an interesting story on their site today that details some of the top cargo ship graveyards from around the world. The article also includes some amazing photos of the rusted out shells of former cargo and cruise ships that ...Travel Read: 100 Places Every Woman Should Go
I never knew there could be a book so thoughtful and inspiring for women as this one. Stephanie Elizondo Griest's second travel book, which lists far more than just 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, is truly an encyclopedia for women travelers. It's the kind of book that ...Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi on life as an expat
Like so many expats, Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi moved abroad right out of college. But since that time, he's had about the most atypical expat experience you can imagine. He played baseball in Uzbekistan for their national team, and was kicked out of the country by ...Keeping the 'Stans Straight, part 5: Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Location: Telling you it's north of Turkmenistan is probably not very helpful. Check the map.
Capital: Tashkent
In a nutshell: The most populous country in Central Asia, Uzbekistan is perenially cited by international watchdog groups as having one of the world's ...Moscow's best outdoor markets
There is nothing quite like a Russian outdoor market.
Imagine a place where produce and goods from the largest country in the world come together in a bounty of pleasure. Throw in tastiness from the former soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucuses, and you've got a ...Kazakhstan Replacing Cyrillic Alphabet with Latin One
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One of the biggest challenges of traveling through the former Soviet Union is tying to decipher the Cyrillic alphabet. The unnerving thing is that it shares many letters with the Latin alphabet, yet they are pronounced very differently. Like a "B" having a "V" sound, for ...Happy Birthday to Samarkand...Again
Just two decades after celebrating its 2500 year anniversary, the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan has just celebrated its 2750th birthday. Since the celebrations marking two and a half millenia, archaeologists have now discovered texts which show that the trading city on the ...Awesome UNESCO Panos
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I'm a big fan of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and over the years have loved strolling through the official website to check out possible places to visit.
In the past, the website only had a handful of photographs to give you an idea of what to expect from a location. But ...Word for the Travel Wise (12/10/06)
Just about anywhere you go in Central Asia to eat you're bound to come across this slightly greasy, yet appetizing and filling meal of rice, chick peas, and sometimes meat. I ate it plenty of times in Tajikistan and once you get past the greasiness of all the food this is ...Word for the Travel Wise (09/03/06)
Just came across the tourism.uz site which I don't recall seeing in the past and there is a bundle of useful information for travelers planning Central Asian Uzbek travel. This tip should be almost a no-brainer, but under their general info page they say not expect much of ...SmarterTravel: Best & Worst Travel Destinations for Women
As a woman, traveler, and the type that tends to like parachuting into off-the-beaten track destinations, I long for articles that point out where women should go and where they should exercise extra caution when going. Well, USA Today features a fine piece for the solo ...Red Corner: Tamerlane's Uzbek Legacy
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In the pantheon of truly bloodthirsty leaders, the name Tamerlane hardly strikes recognition in the western world (indeed, as I'm typing this on Microsoft Word, the spell-check dictionary fails to recognize the name). Yet, historians claim this sadistic warlord was ...Central Asia Refresher
Every once in a while it's nice to remind ourselves about places that may not be on the top of our travel lists, but we forget exist or never knew existed. As I've been sharing some upcoming travel plans with people it's suddenly starting to strike a nerve how much of the ...Red Corner: The Aral Sea(less)
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Spare a moment for the fisherman of the Aral Sea.
50 years ago they pulled 50,000 tons of fish out of this body of water annually. Today, the water is all but gone and the fish replaced with camels.
Located mostly in Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea was once one of our planet's ...Word for the Travel Wise (05/07/06)
Just when I thought I couldn't unearth any new hard to find languages in the world and on the web today I discovered a few and I do mean very few links into one I'm sure you are all dying to know! (I surprise myself sometimes.) Before I just blurt out the word let me add ...Red Corner: Peter Hopkirk's Central Asia comes Alive
Until just recently, Central Asia had all but disappeared from the world's consciousness. Swallowed up by the Soviet Union in the early part of the 20th century, places like Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan simply vanished anonymously from the world stage.
After ...
