As I get older I appreciate more the simple things in life. I loved spending the afternoon and evening outdoors on a snowy day in February. It is nice to live in a place with four distinct seasons. Winter is my least favorite of the seasons (#1 summer #2 spring #3 fall #4 winter) but I do take advantage of the positives winter brings. Last Sunday I took Obi for a long walk along the Ankhor Canal. Snowfall quiets the landscape and brings out the shapes of trees and pathways. It was so peaceful to be out.
One of the downsides of snow is road conditions. It is my job as the director to determine if the community can get to school safely. Tashkent does not plow and salt/sand many of the roads so even a bit of snow like we had on Sunday (4-5 inches) makes it bad. My big criterium is icy on the road and sidewalks. Thankfully, it was bare road and snow more than ice on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
Another aspect I like about the winter months is hockey season. The Tashkent Humo Hockey Club is in the playoffs this week. I went to Game 1 on Tuesday at Humo Arena. Humo is the second seed and they were playing the seventh seed, Karaganda Yellow Hawks. They looked sluggish and were down 5-2 in the third period when all of a sudden, Humo exploded for three goals in 6 minutes! The game went into extra time. I made it through the first 17-minute intermission after the game and the first overtime period (20 minutes) but no one scored. I went home after that and missed the Karaganda’s winning goal 5 minutes into the second overtime period. I took Joe and Cam to the game and met my friend Shawn and we had a good time. I like a game with goals!
Humo went on to lose Game 2, 2-5 the next night. They are playing February 25-26 in Karaganda in Games 3 and 4. This would be a big upset if Humo loses. They finished the regular season with 38 wins and 12 losses compared to Karaganda’s 24 wins and 26 losses. Karaganda is a city of 500,000 in the center of Kazakhstan, south of the capital of Astana. I am learning Kazakhstan geography through Humo’s participation in the Kazakhstan league. My question of the night was why are periods in hockey not referred to as “thirds” like in basketball or football’s “quarters”?
I end this post with some photos from the Tashkent City Development Park. I have not been there for a while but on Wednesday night, I went to dinner with friends. I was impressed with the growth of the place with literally 10 massive building projects going up over the past 2 years. I didn’t recognize the place. It looked like a winter Dubai. It is incredible how fast Tashkent is growing during my 5 years here. Projections show that Tashkent will grow to 4 million people by 2035.
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