TASHKENT, NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Anatoliy, 60, earns a living by ferrying children to school each day across Uzbekistan’s Soviet- built capital and then hawking for fares in his battered Daewoo Matiz, along the city’s wide boulevards.

“I used to spend 80,000 sum (around $25.7) per week to buy fuel for my car and now I spend 120,000 sum ($38.6),” he said with a resigned air.

On the issue of protesting against the price rises, he shrugged and said that people in Uzbekistan were different from people in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. “People here are ready to say ‘hop mailly’ [“let it be” in Uzbek] to whatever decision is taken by officials,” he said.

Uzbekistan is considered by most human rights organisations to be one of the most repressive countries in the world and anti-government demonstrations are virtually unheard of.

Officials have said that the price rises were needed to balance the price of petrol sold in the regions and in Tashkent. Many people, though, are skeptical and have said that the government is exporting too much petrol for its own profit.

Shokhrukh, 40, another Tashkent-based gypsy cab driver sucked in a deep breath when he was asked about the petrol price rises.

“Our oil reserves in the Bukhara deposit are now insufficient to cover domestic petrol demands and the government has to import petrol from Russia which they have to pay for in roubles and US dollars,” he said.

Like other Central Asian currencies, the Uzbek sum has lost value over the past couple of years, pushing up inflation.

But is it not only drivers who will be impacted by the rise in the cost of petrol. Shukhrat, 40, an ethnic Uyghur in Tashkent, who sells cloth at Tashkent local bazaar said that all prices will have to increase off the back of such a big jump in the price of petrol.

“Food requires transportation and consequently fuel, I expect some shop owners will rise their food prices,” he said.

ENDS