SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan will allow five more airports, mainly in the eastern Ferghana Valley, to accept international flights, media reported. The flights are likely to serve Russia where labourers head for jobs, underlining the importance of Uzbekistan’s migrant workforce to its economy.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
BATUMI/Georgia, OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The rain lashed down. It turned Batumi’s roads into streams and sent tourists scuttling for cover. Sudden downpours are part of the summer scene at this resort town on Georgia’s Black Sea coast but it still takes unsuspecting tourists by surprise.
And it’s an eclectic mix of tourists. There are Georgians, Russians, Kazakhs and other tourists from the former Soviet Union, as well as Western backpackers and businessmen.
Then there are the Iraqis and Iranians. Georgia’s tourism agency said 10,811 Iraqis and 11,032 Iranians entered the country in August. After visitors from the former Soviet Union and Turkey, Iraqis and Iranians are the two biggest groups.
An investigation by the Wall Street Journal earlier this year said Iranian businessman, who until recently didn’t need a visa to enter Georgia, were setting up Georgian companies to avoid US sanctions. Possibly, but many Iranian and Iraqi visitors are going to Georgia to holiday.
There are now direct flights to Tbilisi from Tehran, Baghdad, Erbil in Kurdish Iraq and Basra on the Iraqi Persian Gulf. From Tbilisi, Batumi is an easy five hours by train.
In central Batumi three rather rotund Iraqi men had taken advantage of a break in the rain to dash into a barber shop. They grinned and sat down to wait their turn.
“Georgia is great. Very calm and relaxing,” one of the men said.
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(Correspondent’s Notebook from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Uzbek government will invest $78m between 2013 and 2015 in the tourist sector around Tashkent, Uzbektourism told the Trend news agency. The number of tourists visiting Uzbekistan, mainly for the ancient Silk Road towns, has steadily increased. Officials want to double the number of hotel rooms in Tashkent to 2,800.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)
SEPT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — From summer 2014 Kazakhstan will drop visa requirements for tourists from some EU countries, media quoted Kazakh deputy foreign minister Rapil Zhoshybayev as saying. Mr Zhoshybayev said visa-free regulations were likely to cover countries, such as Croatia, where Kazakh citizens can travel to without a visa.
ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)
CHOLPON ATA/Kyrgyzstan, JULY 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A sunny day had turned bad. Rain was sweeping down the valley warning of an impending storm. Just ahead of the storm, a sleek black 4×4 cruised out of the hills bordering Lake Issyk-Kul, the mountain-ringed glacial lake in eastern Kyrgyzstan.
“Do you need a ride?” asked the young Kyrgyz woman in the passenger seat.
Her driver pulled off towards Issyk-Kul, the large clear-blue lake which serves as a summer playground for Kyrgyzstan’s middle class and ruling elite.
The well-dressed lady in the passenger seat picked up the conversation.
“My driver took me to drink the first milk from a horse that’s just had a baby. It’s very good for the skin,” she said.” “I’m staying at Caprice. My husband’s in Bishkek. He’s in the financial police. He is, how do you say, a workaholic?”
Anti-corruption lobby groups accuse Kyrgyzstan’s police of being riddled with bribe-taking officials. Caprice, the hotel where this Kyrgyz lady was staying, lies near the town of Cholpon Ata on the northern shore of Lake Issyk Kul and is Kyrgyzstan’s most luxurious lakeside resort.
The hotel, the 4×4 and the pampered lifestyle spoke of wealth far beyond the reach of the average Kyrgyz civil servant. In a land of shady deals and rampant tax avoidance, a position in the country’s financial watchdog can be lucrative indeed.
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(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
BAKU, JULY 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Three Azeri men — a psychologist, a photographer, and a software engineer — sat at a café in central Baku. As always, they ordered tea with jam.
Jam is an important part of the tea drinking tradition in Azerbaijan but, like Baku itself, this tradition is changing.
The waiter served the tea and then proffered the three men a plate of nuts and dried fruit. He then added a plate heaped with pastries and another with a tower of miniature Kit Kat bars.
The psychologist shook his head vigorously.
“Ludicrous,” said the software engineer. “It used to be different. You would just choose a type of fruit jam to eat with the tea.”
Tea in Azerbaijan is encased in tradition. Served in an armudu, a pear-shaped glass designed to keep the liquid hot for as long as possible, tea is shared between friends in cafés and served to guests upon arrival in homes.
But excess and bombast, by-products of oil wealth, are everywhere in Baku. Some say that the evolution of the tea service is just another expression of the showy development of Baku. Others, that it simply marks the development of tradition.
The software engineer had another theory. “It’s for tourists,””he said. “Or children.”
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Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 145, published on July 29 2013)
JAWSHANGOZ/Tajikistan, APRIL 29 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — In this hamlet in the mountains of eastern Tajikistan, Firishtamo Shohnavruzov made a note in his battered jotter.
Like many poor farmers, Shohnavruzov has opened his home to international visitors.
“Two guests paid $5 each for plov (a rice and mutton dish) and chai (tea) and $14 for lodging,” he said.
The Pamirs are remote and rugged but with an increasing number of tour operators and basic B&Bs, they are attracting a growing number of intrepid travellers. In the first half of 2011, for example, the Pamir Eco Cultural Tourism Association (PECTA) noted a near 40% increase in the number of tourists to their office in Khorog, the main town in the south of the country.
Shohnavruzov Homestay is typical of the locally-based tourism PECTA, set up in 2008, wants to encourage. The main attraction is the so-called Pamir Highway, an arduous 500km Soviet-built road over soaring mountain passes that connects Khorog to Osh in Southern Kyrgyzstan.
There are still many, basic, infrastructure challenges, though.
Gulnara Akhmatbekovna, a tour guide in Murgab near the Kyrgyz border, leafed through various guides printed out in different languages.
“What I’d really like is an internet connection that doesn’t run on a generator,” she said.
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(News report from Issue No. 133, published on April 29 2013)
JAN. 26 2011 (The Conway Bulletin) – Georgia and Iran introduced a visa-free regime for citizens staying less than 45 days. The visa-free deal was struck in November. Relations have steadily improved between the two countries and last year a twice weekly air service started between Tbilisi and Tehran.
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(News report from Issue No. 25, published on Jan. 31 2011)