The central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan is making a concerted effort to increase tourism, especially to the fabled cities lying along the Great Silk Road which Marco Polo traveled en route to the then-unknown Orient.
This report focuses on hotels in which I stayed and which I visited during a recent two-week visit.
Some General Notes on Uzbekistan Hotels
Uzbekistan became independent in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Six years later it is still remarkably “Soviet” in many ways. (In fact, Uzbekistan’s current President, Islam Karimov, who now rails at the injustices of Soviet rule, was the last Soviet ruler of the republic.) If you missed the Soviet Union in its heyday, you can still get a taste of it in Uzbekistan.
Perhaps one reason for the soviet feel of most hotels is that the vast majority of the staff with whom you will come in contact is of Russian (or at least European) extraction; native Uzbeks seemed to be in a distinct minority. Also, every hotel I stayed in seemed to have a few young men in dark, ill-fitting suits standing about the lobby doing nothing in particular. I don’t know for sure if they were “state security” but anyone who has read a cold war spy novel would be hard-pressed to peg them as anything else.
“Rack Rates” for hotels tend to be quite high. If you are traveling as part of a tour group, the pro-rata price you pay for a night’s lodging will be considerably lower. Those who attempt to travel “independently” in Uzbekistan (that is, wander into a hotel and book a room) will find the rack rates to be cast in stone; no corporate rates or AARP discounts here. Hotels also have a two-tiered pricing system: one for foreigners and one for Uzbeks or citizens of the CIS (Confederation of Independent States, the successor to the old Soviet Union). As you might surmise, the prices quoted to foreigners are considerably higher than those quoted to ex-soviet brethren.
To obtain a tourist visa to Uzbekistan, you must pre-book a minimum of two nights in a hotel. If you go this route, I would recommend booking those two nights at a Tashkent hotel, for your first and last nights in Uzbekistan. Just be aware that keeping your lodging budget under control on subsequent nights will require either
Machiavellian bargaining skills or compromises in quality and comfort.
Accommodations in Uzbekistan can be divided into four categories. At the top of the heap are new hotels, typically built with foreign capital from places like India and Malaysia. These are post-independence structures that by and large meet international hotel standards and carry rack rates to match. The second tier are former Intourist Hotels, into which all foreigners were steered in soviet times. These can be considered to be moderately priced by international standards. Next, are the former Sputnik Hotels which, in the soviet era, were intended for soviet citizens. They were never luxurious and after years of benign neglect most of them are quite run down.
Efforts are being made to refurbish some of these establishments (notably the Intourist hotels) but generally speaking staying in a soviet-era hotel means a sharp step down from Western standards. Expect the rooms to be worn and threadbare, the plumbing unreliable, and the service brusque to nonexistent. Hotel food in these establishments is nothing to write home about either, with the cuisine leaning heavily toward Russian Institutional, which is a shame since Uzbekistan has a vibrant and delicious cuisine of its own. (By the way, bottled water is essential in Uzbekistan, regardless of where you are staying.) There may be hotels, quite inexpensive ones, that don’t quite fit the ex-Intourist or ex-Sputnik category, but I didn’t visit any.
The fourth category, and a very promising one for both Uzbekistan and the budget traveler, is the bed and breakfasts that are popping up in the major tourist cities. They offer lodging (and breakfast) for $20 to $30 or so per person, per night. The government, in the form of UzbekTourizm, is creating an “association” of B&Bs, which may be just a way of keeping a closer eye on this form of nascent capitalism.
Hopefully, it will result in marketing a much needed budget alternative to the high cost of hotels in Uzbekistan. I have been promised a complete list of B&Bs, which I have yet to receive. When I get it, I will post it here.
Finally, I should mention that spur-of-the-moment invitations to stay at an Uzbek home are not at all uncommon. Striking up a conversation with an Uzbek on the flight over could very well result in a free night’s lodging. The Uzbeks are a gregarious and open people and, from everything I have heard and observed, invitations like this are genuine gestures of hospitality rather than something that should be regarded with suspicion.
TASHKENT
Tashkent will be your gateway to Uzbekistan. It is the only city (so far) to which international flights arrive. The visitor to Uzbekistan will inevitably spend at least two nights here, the night of arrival and the night prior to departure.
Hotel Uzbekistan
When I visited the Hotel Uzbekistan, which I gather was once the preeminent Intourist hotel in town, it was in the process of undergoing a reported $31 million renovation. I stayed in three different rooms and got an instructive before-and-after look at the place.
Each floor has a central lobby with a desk presided over by a “gornichnaya”, typically a burly Russian woman of indeterminate age, who functions as a jack of all trades. Her primary function is to hand out keys to the individual rooms, but she will also arrange to have your laundry done (at rates that will be quite high unless you bargain aggressively and successfully) or to get you a massage, which she might administer personally. The gornicnayas at the Hotel Uzbekistan also exchanged money (at a fair bit less than the going black market rate) and even offered one member of my party the services of a $50 whore.
My first room was in the unrenovated southern wing of the building. It was small and drab, more like a dormitory room than a hotel room. The mattress was hard and worn and I received a nasty scratch from a spring when I rolled over in bed. The television worked erratically. Once the BBC World channel appeared but only once; the rest of the time only Russian and Uzbek channels were available.
The bathroom was small and cramped, the sink had only the most tenuous connection with the wall and cockroaches provided a homey touch for a native New Yorker. The tub (if that’s the right word) was a shallow square about the size of a shower stall and showering proved to be the preferred mode of bathing. The second room was much the same although it had the advantage of an Eastern exposure.
Rooms facing the front of the hotel (West) look out through a modernist concrete lattice work hung a few feet from the outside wall. This design strategy (which looks quite spiffy from the street) allowed the architect to save some rubles by running the pipes down the exterior wall but it makes for a dark and dingy prospect. Rooms on the back of the hotel (East) open on to small balconies, a marked improvement, although the rising sun (Tashkent has few cloudy days) may prove irksome for late sleepers.
By the time you read this, the old wing will be closed for renovation. However, I suspect that many soviet-era hotels in Uzbekistan still continue to serve up a similar ambiance and so the above description may prove useful.
The renovated northern wing is a study in contrasts. The hallway floors are plushly carpeted and the walls semi-paneled in a rich reddish wood. The renovating architects have often knocked together two small rooms to create one spacious one. I saw three distinct varieties of rooms here: small doubles with a bath containing a shower stall, large ones with copious closet space but still with a shower-only bathroom, and large doubles with a deep tub in the bathroom. All rooms have televisions and (empty) mini-bars and the furnishings and appointments are modern and comfortable.
The lobby was still unrenovated when I visited and it is showing its age. There are some overpriced souvenir stands which have the virtue of telling you what not to pay for various items, a newsstand with only one English language paper (the Central Asian Press) on offer, and a snack bar and bar where you can buy the bottled water you will need at two to three times what you will pay at the nearby Mir Supermarket. Interestingly, the prices quoted for the same item at the snack bar varied widely from day to day depending on who was on duty and what he felt the traffic would bear.
When the renovation is complete, the hotel will have a health club, an outdoor swimming pool, two restaurants, and a casino.
The restaurant is large and only partially used. I only had breakfast at the hotel (and then only because breakfast was included). My traveling companions had their complaints about the breakfast buffet but I actually grew to like it. For one thing, it was plentiful and if one item proved to be not to your liking there were plenty of others to sample. There were fried eggs and a selection of not too good breads. There were also greasy cabbage and eggplant dishes, bland hot dog-like sausages, and rice. For the more health-conscious, fresh fruit and yogurt were available. There are waiters at breakfast but their only function seemed to be to man the table to which you came to have hot water poured over instant coffee crystals or tea bags, at which time they would interrupt their gossiping to offer to exchange dollars on the black market.
The Hotel Uzbekistan is centrally located, I guess, although what exactly constitutes Tashkent’s “center” I never did figure out. Just outside, is Amir Timur Square, which in soviet times housed a mammoth statue of Lenin. Today the Square, a spacious and leafy park that is in essence a large traffic circle, takes its name from the equestrian statue of Tamerlane (know to Uzbeks as Timur), the 13th century conqueror of much of the land from India to the Black Sea. A Metro stop is just down the steps from the hotel’s entrance offering speedy access to the rest of Tashkent.
Across the street is the Istanbul Restaurant, which I didn’t try but which is recommended in the guidebooks (although it is expensive by Uzbek standards). A perfectly good meal is available a short walk away, through Amir Timur Square, and up Saiyelgokh Kuchasi. On your right, you will find a series of outdoor restaurants. Here you can have plov (mutton pilaf), lachman (a spicy noodle soup with mutton broth) or shashlik (shish-kebab of lamb or beef). A bowl of plov or lachman, accompanied by a round loaf of non, the traditional unleavened bread of Uzbekistan, washed down by a Coca Cola cost just 200 sum (about $1.33 at the then current black market rate of exchange). Shashlik costs a bit more.
A little farther along, on Matlubochi Kuchasi, is Mir Burger. This is actually a sort of food court under the Mir brand name. You can also get pizza and very good pastries here. The Tashkent equivalent of a Big Mac meal will set you back about $2.50. This is also a great place to check out Tashkent’s Generation-X. Next door is the Mir Supermarket, where bottled mineral water (the highly recommended Samarkand brand) is about 80 sum (as opposed to anywhere from 200 to 400 in the lobby of the Hotel Uzbekistan).
Hotel Uzbekistan
45 Khamza Street
Tashkent 700047
Phone: 011-7-3712-331349 / 337786
Fax: 011-7-3712-891115
Rooms: 300
Rates: Singles $160, $180, $210; Doubles $240 – $260
LeMeridien
Just behind the Hotel Uzbekistan is this spiffy modern hotel. When the hotel opened in August of 1995, it was an UzbekTourism operation; in April of 1996 it changed hands, coming under the ownership of Bakri, an Indonesian company. It’s now under British management and has recently (August of 1996) been brought into the LeMeridien family of hotels which is giving it a thorough dusting and cleaning. I am told that the room furnishings left something to be desired and that the current remodeling will bring the hotel more in line with international standards for luxury hotels.
I didn’t stay here or eat here so I can’t comment except to say that the public spaces look quite nice, if a little bare and empty. I did have the opportunity to speak with an American tour group who were staying in the hotel; they gave the place high marks. Apparently, only about 3 percent of their business comes from the leisure market, with business travelers accounting for the rest.
Hotel LeMeridien
2 Uzbekistan Ovozi Street
Tashkent 700047
Phone: 011-7-3712-406600
Fax: 011-7-3712-406318
In US: 800-225-5843 (Forte Hotels)
Rooms: 316
Rates: Singles $170; Twin Bedroom $190; Suite $300.
Hotel InterContinental
This very posh hotel was the only hotel I saw in Uzbekistan that actually looked like its luxury counterparts in, say, New York or Paris. The lobby is small but extremely well-appointed and was chock-full of Japanese and Arab businessmen when I dropped by.
The InterContinental, which I am told is owned by the Foreign Ministry, boasts two very nice Western-style restaurants. The Brasserie on the Park serves a European buffet in the evenings. The cold buffet is $12 and the hot buffet $19. Soup is $6 additional and dessert is $8. The Allegro restaurant on the mezzanine serves Italian food, with pastas ranging from 760 to 1090 sum, fish dishes from 2350 to 2770, meat entrees from 2180 to 2690, and desserts from 840 to 1010.
Next door is a small amusement park by a lake. A bit farther along is Tashkent’s landmark TV Tower, which is scarcely worth the visit.
Hotel Intercontinental
107A Amir Timur Street
Tashkent 700084
Phone: 011-7-3712-325252
Fax: 011-7-3712-406459
In US: 800-327-0200
Rooms: 245
Rates: Singles from $255 to $275; Doubles $350; Executive Suite $750; Presidential Suite $1,550.
FERGHANA
Hotel Ziyorat
The Hotel Ziyorat was memorable for its toilet paper which apparently goes directly from the bark of the tree to the roll with no intervening processing. Surely they’re in line for some sort of environmental award.
It was the only area in which the hotel excelled, however. This is the sort of establishment for which the adjective “fading” was created. The rooms are looking their age and the plumbing is temperamental, although the hot water seemed to be reliable.
The public spaces are small and drab and undecorated (the pool in the lobby was dry and occupied by a small table from which soda and candy was being sold). The restaurant is thoroughly undistinguished and the live evening musical entertainment forgettable; the public restrooms near the restaurant are dirty and malodorous.
All that being said, the place is comfortable enough and the staff is friendly and helpful. The rooms are clean and tidy (with an amusing fire warning posted on the door) and while the walls are thin the lack of guests made for a quiet night. The hotel grounds are pleasant and the lobby opens on to a small canal. The hotel is just a short walk from the bazaar, where freshly baked Uzbek bread makes for a far better breakfast than that served up in the hotel.
Hotel Ziyorat
2A Dodkhokh Street
Ferghana 712000
Phone: 011-7-37322-68600
Fax: 011-7-37322-68602
Rooms: N/A
Rates: Singles $33; Doubles $55.
SAMARKAND
Hotel Afrosiab
All in all, this was my favorite hotel in Uzbekistan. It’s a low-slung modern affair that wraps protectively around a large swimming pool. The rooms are comfortable and well-appointed, with seemingly reliable cable tv service. Most rooms that face the interior courtyard and pool have balconies.
The lobby is modern and spacious with comfortable lounging sofas and the usual quota of baggy-suited young men looking drabber than usual in the surroundings. There are also a number of private dining rooms, a disco with decor that vaguely evokes an archeological dig, and a coffee shop.
The restaurant is large and airy but the kitchen apparently has its ups and downs. The breakfast buffet is no better than that served up by the Hotel Uzbekistan and, at least when tour groups are in residence, late risers may find the pickings slim. The one dinner I had there was in a cramped annex, the main dining room having been rented to a large and boisterous wedding party. The food was Russian, heavy, and uninspired.
However, they do some things right. At a private dinner I attended the kitchen turned out a sumptuous spread of appetizers, mostly vegetarian, that highlighted the European, Uzbek, and Korean influences on Uzbek cooking. (The Korean flavor in the Uzbek melting pot is courtesy of Uncle Joe Stalin who, fearing that a Korean enclave in Russia’s Far East would prove sympathetic to Japan during the war, had the whole kit and caboodle relocated to Uzbekistan.)
The staff is extremely friendly and helpful, with good English skills. There is a small business center in the hotel that can assist with things like faxes and the like.
Hotel Afrosiab
2 Registanskaya St.
Samarkand
Phone: 001-7-3662-31-13-41
Fax: 001-7-3662-31-10-44
Rooms: 278
Rates: Singles $90; Doubles from $140
B&Bs in Samarkand
While I was in town I had the opportunity to visit (but not stay at) the new bed and breakfast establishment of Kholmumin Mamarakhimov and his wife Dilbar.
Their home is located well off the tourist track on a dusty street in a modest middle class neighborhood. In Uzbek fashion, shoes are left just inside the door and you pad about the house in stocking feet. The furnishings are modest but homey, with rugs covering linoleum floors and overstuffed sofas lining the walls. The two guest rooms have modern toilet facilities but , for those old-fashioned types, there’s a one-holer in the corner of the courtyard. The Mamarakhimovs are the soul of hospitality. They don’t speak any English which might make a stay here a bit of a challenge but that shouldn’t deter you. If I were heading back to Samarkand, this is where I’d stay.
The b&b phenomenon is fairly new to Uzbekistan and it has attracted the wary eye of the government tourism infrastructure. Uzbekistan is still too soviet to feel entirely comfortable with ordinary folks just setting themselves up in business, especially when that business is hosting foreign tourists. Consequently, there is now a “B&B Association” which ostensibly insures a certain quality control. That’s true no doubt but I also suspect it means that room charges are artificially high.
The Mamarakhimov’s and other b&bs in Samarkand can be booked through:
Esprit Du Temps
7/1 Omar Khayam St.
Samarkand 703001
Phone: 011-7-3662-35-07-61
Fax: 011-7-3662-31-06-41
Rates (including breakfast): Singles $35; Doubles $50.
For an additional charge lunch and dinner can be added.
Esprit Du Temps is a tourist agency conveniently located right across the street from Registan Square, Samarkand’s primo tourist draw. They tell me their b&bs accommodate from four to fifteen people and that they also can arrange b&b bookings in Tashkent, Bukhara, Ferghana, and Khiva.
BUKHARA
Hotel Bukhara
In one of those bizarre twists of marketing that make Uzbekistan so endearing, the Hotel Bukhara is located right next door to the Hotel Bukhara. The former (known in town as the “New” Hotel Bukhara) is a high-rise marbled palace of a hotel that draws not a little inspiration from the multi-storied atrium lobbies that have become such a cliché in the United States. The latter (AKA the “Old” Hotel Bukhara) is a drab and dingy Soviet dump. Confuse the two at your peril.
The “New” Hotel Bukhara (which is owned and operated by an Indian company) had been opened about a year when I arrived but still had a vaguely unfinished air about it. This was especially true of the room into which I was placed (after the staff discovered that my original room was already occupied). It had no soap, no shower curtain, no toilet paper, no light bulbs, and no curtains on the windows. The television didn’t work and the minibar was still sitting in the bottom of its packing crate. It didn’t work either.
The public areas were, fortunately, fully furnished and quite handsome. Behind the hotel is a medium-sized swimming pool, which was closed when I visited. The dining room is a two tiered affair, very posh, with comfortable tables and banquettes. The meal I had there was a special banquet for guests of the government so it may not be the best gauge of the standard fare, but what I had was delicious. It was the standard Uzbek blowout meal, with a succession of courses that is as predictable as the seasons: the spicy soup laghman, plov, and shashlik.
My stay at the Bukhara was a hectic one. My tab was picked up by my Uzbek Tourizm hosts and I didn’t get a chance to quiz the management on rates and such.
The hotel is about a 15- to 20-minute walk to the old city. Walk out of the hotel, turn left and keep walking in that general direction, veering to your left when you have to make a choice. It can be confusing to snake your way through the narrow streets but as you walk you will find yourself stepping back in time. I first made the walk on a night of the full moon and this introduction to Bukhara’s ancient town was quite magical.
Hotel Bukhara
8 Novoi St.
Bukhara
Phone: 011-7-36522-38311
Rooms: N/A
Rates: N/A
Sacha’s B&B
I didn’t get a chance to check this place out and I wanted to because it came highly recommended. For what it’s worth, Sacha’s is reported to have air-conditioning, a sauna, satellite tv, vegetarian meals, and a refrigerator stocked with cold beer (nice touch that).
Sacha’s B&B
13 Molodyezhnaya St.
Bukhara
Phone: 011-7-36522-33890
KHIVA (URGENCH)
Hotel Khorezm
My hot tip on the dusty provincial town of Urgench is “Don’t go.” Unfortunately, if you’re planning on seeing Khiva, which really is worth the trip, Urgench is hard to avoid, although with a little persistence you don’t have to stay there (see below).
Khiva is an ancient city now largely preserved as a museum. Urgench is a modern soviet city about 15 kilometers away. One is enchanting, the other merely ugly.
Since I wasn’t making the arrangements, and since I wouldn’t have known what to do if I had been in charge, I wound up staying at the Hotel Khorezm, yet another fading Soviet-era hotel. It was a bit like the Ziyorat in Ferghana but without the charm. Some signs in the public areas led me to believe the place plays host to groups from France and Germany.
The saving grace of the Khorezm, at least for those to whom this sort of thing appeals, is that it seems to boast Urgench’s happening yuppie bar. When we checked in a cadre of the burg’s young movers and shakers were vigorously celebrating the opening of the new Coca Cola plant that President Karimov had opened that day. They proved to be pleasant company and a valued resource when it became necessary to make arrangements on our own to fly back to Tashkent.
Otherwise, the place had little to recommend it. The rooms were small and drab with faded, fraying furniture. The walls were thin. The bathrooms were cramped and shabby. And the keyhole in my door looked big enough to accommodate a small car. I never did figure out how to work the damned thing; I was constantly having to summon the gornichnaya to let me into my room and lock it when I left.
We found the hotel staff to be unhelpful and English was not spoken well. The breakfast was about average, which should not be construed as a compliment
Hotel Khorezm
2 Al Beruni St.
Urgench 740008
Phone: 011-7-36237-65408
Fax: 011-7-36237-66180
Rooms: N/A
Rates: Singles $50; Doubles $80 – $130
Hotel Khiva
This hotel is a converted medrassa (Muslim seminary) within the ancient walled city. It has 130 rooms on two levels arranged around the central courtyard. The rooms are simple — they were originally designed for holy men, after all — but they are comfortable and the ambiance can’t be beat. There is no restaurant.
This place or the Hotel Arkanchi (below) are the hostelries of choice when visiting Khiva. Not only are they located (literally) in the heart of the old city, but whatever drawbacks they might have in terms of comfort and convenience will be more than offset by the ambiance.
Hotel Khiva
Phone: 011-7-36237-54945
Rooms: 130
Rates: Singles $26; Doubles $30
Hotel Arkanchi
I didn’t have a chance to visit this one, which is also located in the old city, but it reportedly can accommodate thirty guests. Only five of the rooms have full bath facilities.
Hotel Arkanchi
Phone: 011-7-36237-52974
Fax: 011-7-36237-52230
Note: Information was accurate as of October, 1997.
This article copyright 1997 by Kelly Monaghan. All rights reserved.
