Author: billkralovec

I convinced Ocean and Nadia to go on a bicycle ride with me along the Ankhor Canal. It was the first time us three went on a bike ride in Tashkent. I hope to do this more often. It was a fresh, spring day with the scent of Sweet Violet in the air. Nadia has a keen sense of smell and discerned the pleasant odor was coming from sweet violets that we in bloom in the grass along the canal. We made it all the way to the Minor Mosque and back, covering just over 11 kilometers. The mechanic at Just Roll Bike Studio did a good job in preparing the bikes for the spring riding season.

After the bike ride, we ate dinner at Maqom and tea at Roun’D Korean Dessert Cafe. Oliver was preparing for his IB exams coming up in May and was not able to join us.

After dinner, I took a little nap so I could stay up and watch the NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament, aka March Madness. I still enjoy the first weekend of the tournament after all these years. College basketball was much more popular when I was growing up in the 1980s. I remember watching Michael Jordan’s winning shot against Georgetown at my friend’s house. Many of us followed college basketball closer than the NBA. Today with the new rules, players are spending less time in university and fans cannot establish a connection with the teams because different players come and go often. Some of the best players skip college basketball and are finding alternative routes to the NBA. The NBA is also getting more international players who are not in the American university system. All this has caused less interest in college basketball except for the end of the season knock-out tournament.

Spring has arrived in Tashkent! On my walk with Obi yesterday down my street, the apricot, plum, and cherry trees are starting to bloom. They come out before the leaves come out and the explosion of color is beautiful. The trees employ this strategy to attract pollinators without leaves getting in the way.

It is also spring on the calendar as March 19 was the vernal equinox which means the tilt of the earth causes an equal angle of sun to strike the northern and southern hemispheres. Tashkent is 41 degrees north of the equator and as I am writing this blog post today, March 21, it receives 12 hours and 12 minutes of total daylight. The length of the daylight will increase until June 21 when it will peak at 15 hours and 8 minutes. It is amazing the amount of information you can get online as I see in my weather app, the first light is at 5:56 AM, sunrise is 6:24 AM, sunset is 6:36 PM, and the last light is at 7:03 PM. Before the internet, you would have had to look it up on a table in the Farmer’s Almanac, which is also, now online. The sun and moon and their cycles and phases are not taught enough in science in schools.

I went for my first bicycle ride of the spring yesterday. My seat was a little sore and I noticed that I was not going very fast, especially against the strong winds yesterday. I am trying to get Ocean and Nadia out for a ride today along the Ankhor Canal. I noticed construction is progressing on the Olympic Town (photo above). Uzbekistan is hosting the 2025 Asian Youth Games. It is a huge area near the highway leading to Parkent and the Yangi Tashkent development. An Olympic Stadium will be in the center, surrounded by a “palace of water sports”, indoor training areas, and a rowing canal.

I am noticing throughout the world that climate change is causing erratic weather. For example on Thursday, March 14, Tashkent was hit with a snowstorm mid-morning. We received 2-3 inches of wet snow from about 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. By the end of the school day, the sun was shining and the snow was melting. That was the pattern this winter, intermittent snow with warm, spring-like temperatures. As I am writing this on Saturday morning, it is -3C (27F) and we will have a high of 14C (57F). We are on our Spring Break from school starting today. The weather this week will be lows in the 40s F (6C) in the morning and high 60s and low 70s (21+) in the afternoon.

Businesses in my home region of the Upper Peninsula are asking the federal government for disaster relief funds due to the unseasonably warm winter. Usually, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan receives between 200 and 300 inches of snow in the winter. Winter tourism of snowmobiles and skiing brings a lot of money to the region. They are calling it the “lost winter” of 2023-2024. Marquette, one of the snowiest towns in Michigan and where my son lives, is almost 5 feet below average.

This contrasts with the weather last weekend which was warm and sunny. Oliver is shown above at the entrance of an Indian restaurant we tried last Sunday evening. The Curry House was one of our favorites and they were closed for several months as they reopened in a new location. The servers were experiencing growing pains, but the food was still delicious. I am also starting to take video conference calls outside on our patio. It is the place I love most about our house, sitting in the back garden with the pool and top chan. I am happy winter is ending and looking forward to celebrating the Spring Solstice (Navruz) this week.

One of the only nice things about being sick last weekend was it gave me a bit more time to read. I finished Adrian McCinty’s, “The Cold Cold Ground”. I loved getting lost in his world. The novel is a police procedural set in 1981 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This was at the height of the violence between the IRA (Irish Republican Army), the Ulster paramilitary groups, and the UK government. McCinty is from Belfast and his goal was to put a murder investigation story in the backdrop of a crazy time in the history of the city.

I liked the main character, Sean Duffy, a Catholic policeman trying to make a difference. McCinty is a good writer and his prose reads easily which separates him from a lot of thriller or detective story writers. I learned a lot of British/Irish slang, “bangers and mash” (sausage with onion gravy), “bairn” (a child), “banjax” (to ruin or destroy).

You don’t hear much any more about the conflict between Irish Catholics and UK Protestants. It sounds like from my reading that the two sides (Irish nationalists and UK loyalists) still don’t like each other, but they are not using violence against each other. It will be interesting to see what happens now that the UK has left the EU. There is not a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, which is a compromise from the UK government. It is being questioned and still not quite set yet. From an outsider’s perspective, I think the island of Ireland should be one country, and the UK Protestants in Belfast and the region should be protected as a minority within Ireland. I find it not natural when islands are split like Cyprus. I am glad that both sides are working on the relationship peacefully, but I always think this will hold back the region from fully realizing its potential. I still see a lot of separate lives being lived between Irish Catholics and British Protestants.

It seems like a dreary place to live with the amount of rain Northern Ireland receives. It did feature in the Game of Thrones and the coastal castles are picturesque. Like all the islands in the UK, the land is overpopulated and stripped of its forests and wildlife generations ago. I might read another McCinty novel in the future.

Oliver finished his “mock” (practice in American English) exams this week. The whole family, especially Nadia, was supporting him by encouraging him to study, making sure he arrived to school on time and that he would do his best. It was nice on Monday morning to ride to school with the whole family on the way to his mathematics exam. Often in the mornings, Oliver and Ocean walk to school to get the most possible sleep. We only live 800 meters from school. We only have a month of Oliver regularly attending school before they go on study leave and take the IB exams in May.

On Tuesday evening Nadia and I attended a screening of the film, #Nova, produced by a small Israeli production company called Yes Studios. The documentary shows the night of October 6 and the morning of October 7 at the NOVA music festival. The documentary is entirely made from mobile phone and Go Pro footage from the Nova Music Festival. This is the psychadelic dance music festival that took place in the fields of southern Israel, just across the border from Gaza. There are no interviews or explanatory dialogue. Most of the documentary are mobile phone videos of concert goers supplemented with some footage from the terrorists. It reminded me how much today’s youth documents their lives and how comfortable they are with doing this, even in times of high stress.

My reaction to the video was horror, anger, and sadness. The heartbreaking calls from kids to their parents were too much. It could have been my daughter calling us. I was angered over the loss of young lives. The documentary focused more on the concert attendees rather than the terrorists, but the film shared the Gazan soldiers calls to Allah to bring them strength to murder unarmed Israelis. The statistics are horrifying. Of the roughly 3,500 in attendance at the festival, 364 people were murdered and 40 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. The film captured the “fog of war” well. We had the perspective of the concert goers and they were unsure how big the attack was going to be, when the police or Israeli army was going to arrive, whether to stay at the venue or drive away. What was the safest option? Many ended up running into the countryside and hiding.

The Israeli Ambassador had a lot of courage to put on an event like this. It was uncomfortable for us all and not your typical diplomatic event. She reserved 5 seats in front with photos and a flower for five of the women who were taken hostage by the terrorists. I can’t imagine what they are going through.

A virus has come to our family. Nadia and I stayed home from school yesterday with fever, headache, cough, etc. Ocean was sick as well, but she had two school exams. Oliver was the only one who escaped it. We are taking this 3-day weekend to rest and recover.

It was a quiet day of rest and recharging after an emotionally and physically draining CABC tournament. There was wet snow most of the morning so I stayed in and caught up with my yoga. Nadia and I supported Oliver who is getting ready for his practice IB exams this week. I did errands around the house like putting windshield wiper fluid in the car, tidying the kitchen and living room, doing dishes, etc. Ocean stayed in her room most of the day, working on getting her personal project journal completed. Oliver, Nadia, and I watched the first half of Oliver’s favorite team, Manchester United against Manchester City. Man U scored the first goal but ended up losing the game, 3-1.

The big event was Nadia and I visiting the new Tashkent City Mall that opened last week. This is the first major mall in Tashkent. It has an IMAX theatre with movies in English, international brand stores like Zara, Pull & Bear, etc., a food court that will feature the first Pizza Hut in Uzbekistan. The mall was filled with people like us, just walking around and checking out the scene. It reminded me of when the first international standard ski resort opened a couple of years ago here (Amirsoy), and Uzbeks were proud that they were joining the international community after a repressive dictatorship under the first president Islam Karimov. It helps our family to buy clothes. We don’t have to wait until the holidays and can get the fashion Nadia, Ocean, and Oliver want here.

It is a very young population here and this is an example of rapid growth. The mall is part of the Tashkent City development that includes two international hotel chains, restaurants, apartments, office buildings, and a Dubai-like park. The city is changing rapidly and becoming more like other cities with modern amenities like large shopping malls, cinemas, restaurants, credit cards, etc. We have seen all this happen within the 4 an 1/2 years since we came to Tashkent.

It was a heartbreaking end to our season in the Central Asian Basketball Classic. Six schools from Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan were hosted by our school for 3 days of tournament basketball. We played 7 games over the 3 days, winning 4 of them and losing three of them. After the round-robin portion of the tournament, we were seeded #2, just missing out on the top seed by a point differential of 1 point. That set us up for a difficult path to the finals. We lost in the semifinals to Bishkek IS and then in the consolation match, were upset by one point by Almaty International School. We finished a disappointing fourth place.

We had one of the youngest teams in the tournament with no grade 12 seniors and a team mostly of grade 10 students. The girls improved during the season and we finished with a record of 11 wins and 5 losses. We won our city championship tournament and have a lot to be proud of. I profoundly enjoyed the experience and love coaching basketball. In my career, I’ve been blessed to not be on the losing side to often, so losing out on a medal was painful. They say you learn from losing more than winning. I am taking away the following:

• Physical fitness is key in a tournament of this nature. I didn’t prepare the girls with strength and conditioning and it showed as the tournament wore on. I could have played our starters less during the round-robin in retrospect.
• We didn’t prepare enough against zone defenses. Our girls struggled with turnovers and finding open shots.

Probably the best thing about the season was the relationships I made with the players and coaches. It is such a privilege to get to work with and know young people. I have not coached girls in many years and it was cool to get back to teaching basketball fundamentals to them. My mother was a long-time basketball coach and I grew up around women’s basketball, so I felt a bit a home surrounded by girls in gymnasiums this season. I am glad the season is over because of the time commitment. I am looking forward to getting back to more time with Oliver and Nadia. Nadia was a fantastic supporter of the team and I want to thank her too.

This morning I am watching the Los Angeles Lakers versus the Denver Nuggets. LeBron James scored his 40,000 points earlier in the game. He passed second place Kareem Abdul Jabaar (38,387) who also had a long career. Kareem would have had more points if he had been allowed to go directly to the NBA like LeBron James. He spent 4 years at UCLA due to the rules at the time. He scored over 2,000 points a season in his first five years in the NBA. Even if he would have averaged 1,500 points a season as a rookie and the next three years, that would be 6,000 additional points, and I would add another 2,000, so say he would have finished with 46,000 points. He was a much different player than LeBron and had an unstoppable sky-hook shot. In looking at the all-time scoring leader list, I don’t see any current players approaching LeBron’s total. The closest is Kevin Durrant of the Phoenix Suns with 28,000 at age 35 and an injury history. It is amazing what LeBron is doing at age 39 with the Lakers. I think that will be his big legacy. He is still scoring at an elite rate, amassing almost 7,500 points and counting after age 35. How much more can he get? Players in their 40s are more injury prone so his career could end earlier than expected, based on his health today. I predict LeBron will get another 5,000 points over the next 4 seasons and finish around 45,000 for his career. By the way, Denver beat the Lakers with big baskets in the final few minutes of the game. The difference was Denver has two superstars, Jamaal Murray and Nikola Jokic and the Lakers only had LeBron tonight. Jokic is amazing and in just the few minutes I watched, he made an awkward, off-balance jump hook and had an amazing pass off the same jump hook move that resulted in a teammate’s dunk. Absolutely a joy to watch.

It was a special day when the Varsity Girls Basketball Team won the TIS Tournament. We went undefeated winning four games and capturing the first varsity girls championship in several years. The games took place February 17 and 18 in our gym. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed coaching the team and collaborating with coaches Yuliya and Jeanette.

• TIS 31-17 versus Skola 208
• TIS 28-16 versus Skola 86
• TIS 19-10 versus British School of Tashkent
• TIS 30 – 8 versus Skola 86

The girls are really improving and it is also a pleasure to work so closely with my daughter Ocean. We are bonding over sport! We are halfway to our goal of two championship banners. Next week we have the Central Asian Basketball Classic (CABC) and it will be much tougher with 6 teams in the varsity girls category including teams from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. I can’t wait for the games!

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.

I had a fascinating afternoon touring Tashkent yesterday with architects visiting our school to renew our Master Site Plan. I wanted to give them the full flavor of Tashkent and Uzbek architecture. Alexander Federov led us on a tour focusing on Soviet-era modernist buildings. He is a graphic designer, artist, activist, historian, and passionate about preserving these historic buildings in Tashkent. His enthusiasm for Soviet-era “Oriental Modernism” was infectious. It was sad to learn how these buildings are slowly being replaced or altered. I understand the Uzbeks, however, and they might not want reminders of being colonized by the Russians. Something is lost if these buildings are not preserved. They are part of the history of the city and make Tashkent distinctive and add to its charm of east meets west.

It was also fun learning from architects talking about their work and architecture. I learned a lot of Frank Lloyd Wright and the fundamentals of architecture and design over the 4 days I spent with them. I feel our school’s Master Site Plan is in good shape with Cam and Joe and their firm of Truexcullins. We also took the subway back and got to admire the Soviet’s recreation of the Moscow subway station design in Tashkent. Below are some of the buildings and sites we saw on the tour.

Exhibition Hall of the Union of Artists (1974) Rashidov Ulica 40

One of my favorite buildings is the Experimental House жемчуг “Pearls”. It was finished in 1985 and recreates the idea of the mahalla in apartment block form. As you can see in the photograph in the far right, there are 5 common areas that children and families can play and socialize, recreating the idea of the neighborhood streets. There was even a pool on the roof that is no longer working.

The National Historical Museum used to be the Lenin Museum and was built in 1970.

We started the tour at my favorite building in Tashkent, the Hotel Uzbekistan. I learned that it used to have an outdoor pool in back with an amazing roof and that the concrete facade hides utilities underneath.