Author: billkralovec

It has been a cold December in Uzbekistan and like many places in Europe, we are suffering from a shortage of natural gas. This has resulted in lukewarm showers, low flames on stove tops, and people resorting to portable heaters or AC units to heat their homes. Some apartment blocks and homes are affected differently, depending on the home and neighborhood. Luckily, we have warm showers, not hot like before, but enough to feel comfortable. Some of our floors heat as normal and in other rooms, we have no heat at all. On our way to the mountains on Saturday, we noticed long lines of cars waiting for the natural gas stations to open. Many cars in Tashkent converted from gasoline to natural gas because it is cheaper.

Why the shortage of natural gas? I think natural gas is subsidized here and a portion of the natural gas Uzbekistan produces is sold abroad. There has not been enough development of new gas fields in the country. Finally, the country’s economy is growing so fast that supply cannot keep up with demand with more cars on the road, more apartments being built, etc. I see the government has made a deal to purchase more natural gas from Turkmenistan to alleviate the shortages. The unusually low temperatures have not helped the situation and I see that it will warm up a bit over the next week.

The good thing about the cold winter is an early start to the ski season. We had several days of snow last week, one resulting in a rare snow day on Friday. Oliver and I took advantage of the white winter and had an invigorating day of skiing at the Amirsoy Resort. It is relatively inexpensive to ski here. The rental equipment of skis, poles, boots, and helmets for two people costs $28. I reached a milestone and was granted a “pensioner” rate of $18 for a full-day ski pass while my son was charged$26.5o as an adult. That is a pretty good day for $75 for two for a full day of skiing. If you include the $13 parking fee and lunch, it is around a $100 day. I think it is money well spent for a day being outdoors and active with my son!

I am just thankful that as a “pensioner” (age 55+) I can still ski. I was working on leaning forward on my skis and it really did help me control myself. I was able to go on even the steepest and narrowest run (Bravo) without trouble. My favorite run in Tango because it is wide, and long, has a couple of steeper parts and connects back to the mid-point of the gondola. I couldn’t wear the goggles because it was too dark for my eyesight in the shade covered parts of the mountain. Several of the intermediate runs below the mid-point of the gondola were closed. Fortunately, there were not a lot of people at the resort so there were no wait times. The cold weather made for crisp snow and especially in the morning, the snowboarders had not plowed up the snow.

Tashkent received about 6 inches of snow this week and with temperatures remaining below zero, the snow stayed for a few days in the city. More snow is in the forecast tomorrow and for the next 3 days, the temperature will be abnormally cold reaching -9 to =-11. The students love playing in the snow and it really gives the school a Christmas feel.

Uzbekistan is experiencing gas and electricity shortages with no foreseeable quick solutions. I know people that have had power outages and/or low gas. We have electricity in our house but I did notice the gas is low and it results in longer cooking times, warm, not hot showers and a little cooler temperature inside the house because the heated floors are not at full capacity. I feel sorry for the less fortunate.

I’ve had a cold this week so have been trying to take it easy. The other night the family had dinner at Roni Pizzaria. It has a vibrant atmosphere and good food. The countdown is on until Winter Break.

November has come and gone. I can’t believe how fast time is passing. It was an extremely busy month at school for me. We conducted a secondary principal search and hosted 13 evaluation team members as part of our 5-year reaccreditation cycle. These things take a lot of time besides the normal school operations that I have to attend to.

Oliver and Ocean finished their soccer and cross-country running seasons. The new athletic director Walid Berrahal hosted a really nice Fall Sports Awards ceremony. Ocean won the Most Valuable Player Award for the girls, U-15 cross-country running team. Oliver’s soccer team won two championships. I had the honor of opening the ceremony. It was good to see so many students involved in sports at our school and the spirit and sense of belonging this engenders. 

I am pleasantly surprised that Oliver is getting into the World Cup. It is unusual to have it taking place in November and our family usually follows both the World Cup and the Olympics avidly. Every night we try to watch the games and in Tashkent, the time difference means we have had games starting at 3:00 PM and going to 2:00 AM. It was disappointing last night that the USA lost to the Netherlands. They looked small and overwhelmed at times. At least their goal in the 70th minute gave the game some spice before the Netherlands shut the door with their third goal. I enjoy the pageantry and skill of the players but soccer does have a major fault that aggravates me to the point that I have to stop watching. The sport has a serious problem with players falling on purpose to draw a foul. The “flopping” is a farse, with melodramatic flair to make them look ridiculous. I would love to find one team to tell their players never to go to the ground and feign injury and see what effect this has on the other teams and the referees. My solution from a referee’s point of view would be to give an automatic red card and force the player to wear a ballet dancer’s tutu for the next game. I would also change the rules or goal sizes to make goals easier to come by. 

Cold weather has come to Tashkent and we had our first freezing temperatures this school year. Snow is in the forecast for this evening and tomorrow morning! I am looking forward to it and I hope we have a snowy winter. I see there is snow in the mountains which may mean an early opening for the Amirsoy Ski Resort. Hello Winter! Ocean and I found a new Korean Bubble Tea cafe in Tashkent, RounD. Ocean loves bubble tea and on Thursday, we took Obi for a walk to check it out. She rated it highly and we will probably be going back there soon.

During our Fall Break trip to the UAE, we spent two nights in the Dubai exclave of Hatta, a small town of 12,000 people high up in the Hajar (Rocky in English) Mountains. It is an “exclave” because it belongs to the Emirate of Dubai, but it is enclosed by two other Emirates on two sides and on the other two sides by the country of Oman. Hatta was once part of Oman but the ownership was transferred to Dubai in 1850 because the Sultan of Oman at the time, could not defend the region against a rival group in Oman. 

Today it is a vacation destination for expatriates and Emiratis because of the elevation it is less humid and cooler than Dubai. We drove our rental car the 83 miles (134 kilometers) from Dubia to the Ja Hatta Fort Resort. The resort is located just outside of town and was quite nice. We enjoyed the pools and played tennis as well as having some good meals in the restaurant. It was quite relaxing and we could have stayed a few extra days. It reminded me of what I think Palm Springs would be like, a nice town in a desert setting. If I lived in Dubai, I would go out there often.

On the second night, Oliver and I drove through the town and checked out the Hatta Dam, one of the major attractions of the area. They were well set up for kayaking/pedal boating, and as you can see in the video above, I went for a paddle around the reservoir the next morning before we headed back to the airport.

The Dubai government is investing in the town and there were some good roads and parks. The is also a network of hiking trails along creeks and in the canyons but we didn’t have enough time to explore them. Oliver and I did take in the views from a historic fort. Driving through the town, there was not much going on with groups of men sitting in front of storefronts or women sweeping the front sidewalks. 

We were finally able to host a big Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday after a couple of years of COVID concerns. In my role as the director of the school, I like to invite non-Americans in our community to experience the quintessential American holiday. We are fortunate to have affordable domestic support and a large house to be able to accommodate a lot of people. This year I think we finished with 34 guests and people from Australia, Mexico, Israel, India, Ireland, England, and the USA. Nadia prepared my favorite stuffing/dressing and Bolivian corn salad. As you can see from the photos, we ate and drank is 100% satiation. Due to the large American population at the school, TIS gives the community a half-day off on Thursday, but we don’t get Black Friday off.

This year’s Thanksgiving dinner was different because the World Cup is taking place in November. Of course, we had South Korea – Uruguay game and it added to the festivities. The kids loved our dartboard and table tennis which kept them occupied between courses. Mercifully due to time differences, the Detroit Lions, my favorite professional American football team, game kicked-0ff after midnight. The National Football League traditionally schedules the Lions to play on Thanksgiving and they usually lose and it puts a damper on the festivities in my house. They actually played well on Thursday against one of the best teams in the league this year, the Buffalo Bills, losing on a last-second field goal. Despite being 4-7 this season, I am really entertained by the team. They were featured on HBO Hard Knocks during the preseason which brought the team publicity and they have one of the highest-scoring offenses in the NFL. They have some young, exciting players and with the Los Angeles Ram’s first-round draft pick this June, they will be able to get two more good players if they draft well. They need better players on defense.

I have much to be thankful for and the holiday reminds us to reflect on what is good in our lives. As I get older, I appreciate more relationships and how fleeting special occasions are in life. I am lucky to have a loving family and be able to interact with so many smart, interesting and good people in the expatriate school community and Uzbek friends.

Oliver’s team won their second tournament of the season last weekend. They defeated the British International School of Tashkent in a well-played final to take home the city championship. Oliver was hurt in the last of the round-robin games by getting kicked in the foot. It is still tender a week later that stopped him from running in the cross-country championship. Ollie played well in the tourney as both a striker and defenseman. I was proud of his effort and pleased that he had the team sport experience.

Below are the highlights from his best game of the tourney against the Westminster International School It is a private school in the city and along with Diplomat International School and the British School of Tashkent, they form a league of teams that we play.

Ocean and Oliver finished their cross-country running season today with the final meet of the season. The video above is Ocean running in the Under Age 15 4-kilometer Race. She finished in 4th place, just out of the medals behind three girls from the Mirabad Soccer Club. I didn’t get much video due to the pouring rain and I was helping with the timing. She has not been running as much earlier in the season. She peaked for the CAFA Championship in Bishkek. Ocean ran a 19:30 and gave a good effort. She was in third place for much of the and couldn’t hold on on the final long loop around the gardens.

Oliver couldn’t run today as his foot is still injured from last weekend’s soccer tournament. He was kicked in the foot and it is still a bit tender. We may have to take him to a doctor this week for an x-ray.

We have had a lot of rain this month which is a little unusual. Most precipitation occurs December through April but I would guess we’ve had much more than the 2 centimeters average. We’ve had several days of full-day rain.

I ran in the 3-kilometer coaches/parents run. I didn’t feel great but pushed through to finish in 10th place. I love running and was just happy to be out there and we had a lot of fun. The students get a big kick of cheering us on and watching us suffer. 🙂 Long distance running has brought me so much pleasure over the years and I am glad that I am still able to share my passion with my children and wife. I have been so busy at work over the past month or so and it is disappointing how fast older people can get out of shape. I need to make more time for physical fitness and hopefully this run will spur me on! Nadia was a great support person as always!

One bummer was losing my best pair of glasses. They fell out of my pocket while I was running around filming and timing… I hope someone turns them in.

I had such a joyful day at the Samarkand Marathon last weekend. My daughter Ocean, her friend, and I ran the 10-kilometer race and it was special for me to be able to coach the girls to complete the run. At age 55, I am grateful I can still run long distances considering I started on my high school cross-country running team at her age back in 1981. The girls overcame discomfort and some pain to complete the run in about an hour.

This is the biggest public race in Uzbekistan. Race organizers have made it to be an international-standard massive road race. There were people from 40 different countries running with 1,080 runners in the 2km and 1,210 runners in the 10km. They also organized a music concert and other events over the weekend.

Samarkand is a beautiful city with ancient mosques and madrassas preserved from the 14th century. The city was the capital of Amir Temur (Tamerlane in the west) empire. He was one of the great warrior-conquerers that came after Ghengis Khan. He probably killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. 900 years later though, he is considered a hero here in Uzbekistan. Anyway, he had an eye for design and captured artisans and architects and lots of slaves, helping Temur build an impressive city in the middle of the desert.

Foreigners are rare in Samarkand than in Tashkent and people were fascinated with our dog Obi. We only saw one other dog during the weekend. The people were very friendly and we had a nice stay at the Bibikhanum Hotel, next to the mosque of the same name. I recommend The Platan Restaurant for lunch and dinner. Gourmet salads and lamb from the grill as well as other choices, are all high quality.

We drove from Tashkent because all of the trains were full. It was not a pleasant 4hour+ drive with below-average roads, lots of traffic, and the ubiquitous tailgating of drivers in a hurry. Take the train or fly if you are going there.

The weather was absolutely perfect with sunny skies and a comfortable temperature. Samarkand feels more like a desert than Tashkent. The forecast predicted rain, but blue skies were all around. The course was hilly but went by many of the ancient archeological sites and the start and finish were close to the famous Registan.

I am catching up on the blog this week. For our Fall Break after spending a day in Almaty, Kazakhstan, we flew Air Astana to Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. We spent 4 nights and 5 days in the UAE and really enjoyed the desert sunshine and the remarkable transformation of a pearl diving village on the Persian Gulf to an ever-expanding metropolis.

Dubai is a fascinating place and one of the world’s global cities. It reminded me of Singapore or Hong Kong. Author Justin Marozzi sums up the city well in his excellent book, “Islamic Empires: 15 Cities that Define a Civilization” when he quotes a professor from a university in Dubai, “Find me a Syrian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Tunisian, Algerian, Moroccan, Sudanese or an Egyptian who doesn’t want to live in Dubai,…They all do.” 

I have mixed emotions about the city. I love the openness and tolerance demonstrated by the Emiratis. It is a model for the Islamic world. The city welcomes foreigners, and over 200 nationalities reside in the city. It has lifted the standard of living for many. Cities in the Middle East can learn lessons from Dubai Inc. The downside of Dubai is how large it has become. We fought traffic to drive across the city to the Dubai Mall and the scale can be overwhelming. The sheer scale of capitalism – hotels, apartments, restaurants, stores, etc. is dehumanizing. I was much more relaxed when we left the city for the Hajar Mountains in the Dubai exclave of Hatta. 

Another negative aspect is the vast infrastructure of Dubai is built by low-wage expatriates from Asia (India / Pakistan/ Nepal/ Bangladesh/ Philippines) working in tough conditions. The Emiratis only make up about 25% of the population of the country. Yes, these immigrants are there because it is better than where they are from and I would think remittances help their families back home, but watching the workers on these huge construction sites, showed they have a tough job in the hot. desert sun. Most of our interactions with “locals” were Indians and Nepalese.

The Maktoum Dynasty founded Dubai and Sheikh Rashid of the Maktoum Dynasty is the real force behind Dubai Inc. The emirate has had a smart strategy of making it easy to set up businesses in Dubai. They outcompeted other regional cities to dominate the Gulf Region. They did it by taking risks as well to build the infrastructure way ahead of the demand. This included taking out huge loans for dredging Dubai Creek, building two massive ports, an airport, an airline, etc. Time and again, Sheikh Rashid took bold risks that paid off. The growth is phenomenal and it is now a transportation hub for this part of the world. 

It is amazing to think that he took a place with high humidity, extremely hot sun, and a barren desert full of sand and turned it into a place that 15.8 million tourists visited in 2018. When we were thinking of where to travel for the Fall Break, Dubai was one of the easiest choices. There is no visa required, lots of flights and places to stay, and it was the most hassle-free vacation choice to make. 

We paid the requisite visit to the largest shopping mall in the region, the Dubai Mall. It is an absolutely massive palace to consumerism. After a long night of clothes shopping, we watched the famous Dubai Fountain Show, along with hundreds of others. The show itself was uninspiring, but looking at all of the tourists and the buildings, including the world’s highest building, the Burj Khalif, was interesting. We rented an Air B&B apartment near the JBR Beach. The views were cool from the 21st floor although the apartment was cheaply made, but comfortable. Hotels are very expensive in Dubai so the apartment was a reasonable $200 per night for a family of four.

Each morning we walked to the beach and went swimming. I miss the ocean sometimes, living in a double landlocked country. The water was a perfect temperature and it was delightful to spend time with the kids and Nadia. The cityscape background reminded me of Miami or Chicago (summertime!). We met a Russian woman who works in Dubai. There were a lot of Russian tourists and it was funny to keep hearing Russian on our holiday.

On our last night in the city, we drove over to the Dubai Marina Mall. The marina is another of the massive development projects and I appreciated the 7kilometer+ running trail. They built a mosque between the towering apartment buildings and the juxtaposition looked different. We ate at Pier 7, a building attached to the Dubai Marina Mall with 7 floors of restaurants, each with different cuisine. We chose Lebanese on floor 4. The lighted backdrop was spectacular and the food good, so a nice way to end our time in the city.

I finished reading A.J. Finn’s 2018 novel, “The Woman in the Window” on the flight to Dubai. The book jacket describes it as a “smart, sophisticated novel of psychological that recalls the best of Hitchcock.” I was not that swept away by the book, but I did enjoy the story and it helped me fall asleep at night. I like to read thrillers or murder mysteries and think about the plot to calm my racing mind in the evenings. 

I think the back story of the author is almost more interesting than the actual novel. Daniel Mallory uses the pen name, A.J. Finn and he is kind of a con man and liar. Mallory claimed he had a doctorate from Oxford, that he had cancer and his brother committed suicide. All of these are fabrications. I also read that he may have lifted the plot from a similar novel from 2016. He was fascinated with The Talented Mr. Ripley that is about a similar con man and he kind of lives his life like the main character in the novel.

The Woman in the Window centers around a mentally unstable woman suffering from agoraphobia. This is the fear of the outdoors and these poor people are confined to their homes and go into intense panic attacks when they leave. I knew one woman suffering from this when I lived in Belgrade many years ago. She could only go as far as the end of her street in her neighborhood. The main character in the novel is also an alcoholic and mixed with her psychiatric drugs, makes her an unreliable narrator. 

She often spies on the neighbors and sees a crime committed through the window of a house across the park. I won’t give away any of the plot twists and turns or the ending. The book was recently made into a movie on Netflix. It was Mallory’s debut novel and it made it to number one on the New York Times bestseller list. 

The book made an interesting reference to Cotard’s Delusion a mental disorder in which “the affected person holds the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, are putrefying, or have lost their blood or internal organs.” I never heard of this disorder and could go down a rabbit hole on the internet reading about it…