I had a nice day on Friday, starting a new yoga routine and going for a long walk in the evening with Obi. Our family played Nintendo’s Mario racing game together and I took out Oliver and his girlfriend Gianna for ice cream and cinnamon rolls. In the afternoon, I worked at school and completed several projects.
I took Obi for a long walk on the canal near the “Museum of Victims of Repressions” (the building with two blue domes). The goal of the museum is to commemorate the victims of political oppression by the Soviet Union. Over 10,000 people were arrested in 1937, over a third were executed and the rest were sent to labor camps. This was the period of the “Great Terror” and Stalin’s purges. He ordered the arrest of over 1.5 million people and 700,000 eventually were executed. I can just imagine the dread of hearing NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) agents at your door in the middle of the night. The Soviets not only arrested the head of the household but also the wife and children. Stalin was a complete monster and was one of the worst mass murderers in world history. I can see why the Uzbeks want in many ways to rid of all reminders of the Soviet era from their country. I would like to read more about the Great Terror and visit the museum.
The park that surrounds the museum is pleasant and on this cold and dreary day, it was mostly empty with a few people fishing on the banks. I crossed Amir Temur Avenue and did a large loop around the Japanese Garden and Exposition Center before returning to my car. Temperatures remain cold with a high of 2C forecasted today and cloudy all weekend. At least the rain stopped!
I end this post with a photo of an old Lada car with a huge amount of plastic tied to the top of the car. Uzbekistan like many countries, has challenges of recycling waste. I notice a lot of plastic does get recycled here, unlike most countries since the Chinese have stopped taking plastics from other countries. You see cars and trucks like below with big bundles of plastic being transported to recycling plants. I don’t think they get much for the plastic as it is mostly Luli (Roma) or extremely poor people collecting plastic.
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