Trips

We returned from the Bazaar to the hotel by the Metro. There are three lines and 29 stations. The last line opened in 2004 and until just recently it was forbidden to take pictures inside. It cost 12,000 som ($1.50) to buy a plastic token to put into a machine to enter. We got off at one stop that was dedicated to cosmonauts - Yuri Gagarin; Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space; Gennady Padalka, who was captain on five missions; Icarus from mythology; a Soviet rocket engineer; and the Soyus-Apollo mission; etc.

Entrance to the Metro	Entry token
Artwork
	Metro cars
If you don't read the language, you will never know where to go!
	Cute kids
Yuri Gagarin	Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, the first woman in space
Front of the train	See this link for all the nice Metro artwork we didn't get to see.
Mon., 10/8/18 - Tashkent Uzbekistan to Khujand, Tajikistan This morning we drove from Tashkent to the border with Tajikistan. Again we walked across the border from Uzbekistan to No-Man’s-Land to Tajikistan. This took 52 minutes, including passport controls, etc. We met our local guide, Sitara, with the personality of a female dictator and our smaller, much older bus and new driver, Abdullah. The bus has large cracks in the front windshield and a rip in the sidewall of the right rear outside tire. We saw signs warning about land mines in the fields near the border. Uzbekistan has unilaterally decided to mine rural areas along the border. Controversial, to say the least. Tajikistan is the poorest of the five Stans. It is mostly mountainous with peaks of 23,000 and 24,000 feet and a pass going up to 16,000 feet. (See the link for more information about the country.)
Flag of Tajikistan The Tajik flag is red on top for unity and the blood shed in the 1992 to 1997 civil war; white for purity of the Tajik culture; green for the ecologically green young country; and the crown, scepter, and 7 stars in gold on the white part. The seven stars represent the significance of the number seven in Tajik traditional legends representing perfection and happiness.
It did get changed next day	The better to see through?
Syr Darya River	The president of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, has his photo everywhere! On every building, in every public place, on billboards everywhere, there must be hundreds of thousands of photos throughout the country.
Our sight-seeing in the rain included a view of the Syr Darya (river) and what was once the “tallest” flagpole in Central Asia. (Have we heard this before?) Then we visited Arbob Palace which was built in the 1950s to house the headquarters of Soviet collective farming. The outside was built to resemble St. Petersburg’s Winter Palace. The inside has an auditorium with wood panels, carved plaster, and wonderful painted ceilings. The office rooms, now museum galleries, have beautiful painted designs on all of the ceilings. The painting was all done by the families and workshops of three master artists.
Arbob Palace	Chandeliers
Gorgeous ceilings	Ceiling
Ceiling	Ceiling
Ceiling	i Floors, as well

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