Bill's Blog

It snowed again this week! Large, soft snowflakes hit the ground early Wednesday morning making the walk to school a winter wonderland. I would guess it was about 3-4 inches, enough in the following days to make some impressive snowmen at school. My teenagers are out of that stage, but they do enjoy throwing snowballs. I snapped this photo of my son Oliver during my gate duty. All of the students need to take their temperature and check for COVID-symptoms in their household before coming to school. The measure helps reinforce the message to parents to be vigilant for signs of COVID and the school and families are in this pandemic together. I love snow and always have the philosophy if we are going to have cold weather, we might as well have snow to go with it. This is the second big snowfall of the winter and I hope we see a bunch more. As I am getting older, I feel the cold more and I am getting like my dad, who the first thing he did every morning was look at the thermometer outside the window and check the WIKB (our local radio station in Iron River, Michigan) morning news for the weather. I now see why older people talk about the weather so much.

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I went for a bicycle ride on Tuesday because it was Constitution Day, a national holiday in Uzbekistan. This was before the snow came and with less traffic on the holiday, it was a refreshing ride. I rode along the Ankhor Canal to the Memorial to Victims of Oppression Park. It is difficult to find time to ride as we near the winter solstice. The sun does not come up until after 7:30 AM and sets before 5:00 PM, which means any outdoor exercise is in the dark.

The Uzbeks love Christmas/New Years and huge public displays are going up all over the city. The majority Muslim country only calls it New Years but they have adopted Santa Claus and the secular aspects of the holiday. I see an interesting competition between the North American/Western European Santa Claus and the Russian “Grandfather Frost” and his grand daughter, “The Snow Maiden”. I originally thought the grand daughter was Frost’s much younger wife. 🙂 I like that “Ded Moroz” is a skier!

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One more week of classes before Winter Break!

One of the advantages of living in a developing nation with a low-cost of living is being able to afford services on an educator’s salary. I woke up on Sunday to a flat tire. In Japan or the USA, I would have to get out the jack and spare, change the tire, repair and put the old tire back on the car and put away the spare and jack. Instead, I made a call to my right hand man/driver and he got a “master” to come from a nearby garage to make the repair and change. My quality of life improves when I avoid tedious jobs. It is also nice to feel that I am helping local people make a living.

I took Obi out for a walk last night around the main square downtown (Amir Temur Square). The Palace of International Forums adjacent to teh square is such an impressive building. I would love to tour inside the convention center sometime.

On Sunday I noticed our local supermarket, Korzinka (basket in Russian) had its Christmas decorations displayed. Even though it is a Muslim country, Christmas and New Years is a big deal here. It is funny however, when I say “Merry Christmas”, no one understands what I am saying. The Uzbeks adopted Santa Claus and other secular items from Christmas and wrapped it in the New Years celebrations. There is also still a significant Russian population here that celebrates the Orthodox Christmas in January.

Today is Constitution Day in Uzbekistan. President Mirziyoyev sent out this message to the nation yesterday.

It has been a quiet weekend so far. Our school is in our recruiting season so lots of interviews, checking references, looking through resumes, etc. I am finding family time in between all of these activities. Yesterday afternoon I went for a cold walk with Obi around the Alisher Navoi National Park, a large green space full of statues of writers and poets. The sci-fi looking theatre, the National Friendship Palace is such a striking building that I love to walk around it. There seemed to be some action going on inside as I saw performers getting makeup applied through one of the windows. Temperatures are hovering around 0C (32F) all this week and into next week. It has been a much colder November and December this year from last year. It was also a poor air quality day in Tashkent, combined with fog and cold, it was a miserable day to be outside. I should go up to the mountains this afternoon to see some snow.

Friday night I was shocked to attend a Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony held at one of the major, international hotel chains. The American Chamber of Commerce sent the invitation around to its members. I thought it was going to be held outside. However, the event was held in a packed lobby of 150-200 people, half not wearing masks. I was uncomfortable being so close to so many people and only stayed a few minutes. As I was walking out, the choir was starting to sing… talk about a super-spreader event! It seems many people here think the pandemic is over and much of the city is back to normal. I am still taking precautions to avoid being infected and with promising vaccines on the way, at least I can see the possible end to this pandemic.

On a more pleasant note, my wife Nadia and I discovered an excellent Georgian wine. The Saperavi grape variety is new to me and is native to the Caucasus and Central Asia. This particular vineyard is from Kakheti, a mountainous region in eastern Georgia. It is very drinkable, consistently good, dry wine that I highly recommend.

Finally, I had to take a photo of my son’s lunch yesterday. He ordered delivery and had a large burger, steak and fries. My two teenage sons have tremendous appetites. It is incredible to watch how much they eat. We had a nice night, sitting around eating pizza (another delivery), laughing and talking in the kitchen. Later we watched Bridget Jones Diary, one of my wife’s favorite movies. It is almost 20 years old, but holds up well and is an excellent “Rom-Com”.

It was a quiet and cold Sunday for me. We had a nice breakfast with Ocean, Ollie and Ocean’s friend Asla staying over last night. We spent the morning looking at another house to possibly move to. We decided despite the house being twice the size of our current home, we are very comfortable with one of the few Western-style home in Tashkent. In the afternoon, I took Ocean over to her friend’s house and went for a run with Obi. I must be getting old because after about a mile, my calf started to tighten, so much so that I ended up walking for most of the loop. While walking with Obi I noticed the German Lutheran Church. It is nice to know that different religions are tolerated in Uzbekistan. Uzbek culture is very accepting and laid-back and it shows with their support of Lutheran, Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches in the city. There is also a small Jewish center that city officials and private citizens protected from destruction by one of the many housing and retail developers.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church, or the German Church , is the only Lutheran church in the city of Tashkent. On the street Sadyka Azimova, for more than a hundred years in the dense green shade of centuries-old trees stands the modest Gothic building of the German Church.The church was built in 1899 by the Tashkent Lutheran community, according to the project of the famous Tashkent architect and artist of the XIX century A.L. Benoit, with money from I. Krause. In Soviet times, the building was used as a warehouse. And at the end of the 70s of the XX century, the building was transferred to the leadership of the Tashkent Conservatory and after the restoration began to be used as a room for the opera studio of the conservatory.At the same time, an organ was installed in the building and organ music concerts were regularly held there. In the 90s of the XX century, the building was transferred to the newly created Lutheran community of the city. The church was built of brown-yellow brick with a layout in the spirit of the Baltic church architecture: the style of this building belonged to neo-Gothic architecture.The interior of the church is more modest than in the Catholic church. Also in Lutheran temples there are such traditional attributes as: crucifix, sacred fire (lamp) and candles.The main parishioners of the church are Tashkent Germans. During the revolution, there were quite a lot of them in Tashkent. Most of the visiting Germans were in the royal service – they were officers. Today, the church, which still works today, is visited by their descendants, as well as visiting foreigners. The service in the Lutheran church is based on the traditions of the Catholic Mass, but is more simplified.

Global Connect.com

I also noticed a Wendy’s franchise under construction. It is amazing the pace of development in Tashkent. All over the city huge housing developments, shopping centers, restaurants, etc. It will be a much different city years 5-10 years from now.

We decided to hold our annual Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, Saturday, because we were so busy at school this week. It was another outstanding meal prepared by Nadia with help from Delia and Shannon. We had a much smaller affair this year due to COVID. We invited one family that is in our social bubble and Owen’s friends from his grade 12 bubble. I ate too much, but we had a lot of laughs and good times. These moments mean a lot to me and I feel fortunate to be surrounded by family and friends.

I was expecting lots of snow overnight on Friday, but the temperatures were above freezing so it was mostly rain. I went for a 5-mile run around the Tashkent City complex and it was slushy and cold. Most of the day was spent preparing for Thanksgiving, with me running errands to pick up beverages and my usual shuffling our teenagers to their various engagements.

I also picked up a bottle of the “Anti Virus” vodka produced here in Uzbekistan. I see that it was a trend on Tik Tok with an American company stating it killed the coronavirus. The president of Belarus also claimed that vodka and saunas kill coronavirus. I will most likely not drink it, but it is quite the conversation piece to have in our kitchen.

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We had two bouts of snow this week that took everyone’s mind off the pandemic for a short time. Snow brings out the child in me and I was excited to get out in the fresh winter air. Today I took my dog Obi for a long walk along the main canal in the city. He loves playing in the snow as much as I do! It probably snowed about 6 inches on Tuesday and again a couple more inches this morning. It has been below zero all this past week but this week will see the snow melting as we will experience highs of 8 C on Thanksgiving and to the weekend. Kids in the neighborhood have been pushing each other with sleds and the snow reminds me of my childhood in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I love the change of seasons.

I had a great day on Saturday playing disc golf with my son Owen. He loves the sport and coincidentally, our international school has a 9-basket course on campus. It was really cold, but as I always say, any day that I spend more time outdoors than indoors is a good day.

I finished Erik Larson’s “The Splendid and the Vile” last night while I was battling a migraine. I read his past two books, “In the Garden of Beasts” about the US Ambassador to Germany and his family during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis as a political party and “Dead Wake” covering the sinking of Lusitania, a large passenger ship similar to the Titanic, that was sunk by German U-boats. He mixes journals and historical research into telling a good story.

I loved reading his latest. It struck me that while all these people were living through historical events, they also had regular human problems. Larson discusses the financial difficulty of Winston Churchill and his unusual habits. He also follows Churchill’s children and grandchildren and all of the romantic difficulties young people experience.

It is unbelievable and such a tragedy what the German air force did to London and other cities in England. For nine months, the Nazis firebombed indiscriminately England periodically from September 7, 1940 to May 11, 1941. The English called it the “Blitz” and nearly 29,000 Londoners died, over 28,000 were seriously injured. In the entire country, over 44,000 people died, including sadly, 5,626 children. The scale of these war crimes is incredible to believe looking back. I hope America would not let something like this happen again. What a madman Hitler was and I am shocked that German pilots would listen to him and bomb civilians.

It is well known that Hitler made errors a couple of times with not finishing off England before marching on Russia. He should have kept the troops advancing on Dunkirk (an excellent movie!), but delayed to rest his troops while they escaped. He thought that the German army would quickly dispose of the Russian army, but the size of Russia and winter, aided the Russians in bogging down the Germans. Hitler was content in aerial bombing England for almost a year, trying to get Churchill either out of office or surrendering. It would have been difficult to launch an amphibious assault, but after easily going through Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, France, etc. it seemed to me that England would have been a bit more challenging being an island, but certainly easier than Russia.

I was also surprised on how much Churchill wanted the Americans to join the war effort. He knew England couldn’t defeat Germany on its own.

I took several leadership lessons from this book. Churchill was quite the character and was right in standing up to Germany. There was a lot of opposition, but when faced with a bully like Hitler, it was better than the alternative of surrender and let the Germans run England. Stick to your convictions! He was an inspirational leader for all the English and helped them find courage within themselves. He also heavily relied on advisors and people around him. Finally, he was a symbolic, theatrical leader at a time of crisis. The next time I am in Washington, I would like to visit the Churchill library at George Washington University. Below is some new vocabulary and a great quote.

• astrakhan collar – wool from a Central Asian sheep; it is black or grey and curly
• scurrilous speech – using or given to coarse language
• cloisters in St. Stephen’s Chapel – covered walkway, usually with arches, connected usually with convents or church
• sangfroid – self-possession or imperturbability especially under strain (Churchill had a lot of it)
• After his wife once criticized his drinking, Churchill told her, “Always remember, Clemmie, that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”

Sunday I attempted to ride around Lake Charvak. It was part of a race and I rode 56 of 83 kilometers before being picked up by the trail vehicle. I have not been riding in a long time and did not want to hold up the rest of the group. I really enjoyed the ride. It was decent weather, cool, partly overcast and as always, inspiring views of the Tian Shan Mountains.

The lake is a triangle and I rode the backside of the triangle, a new section for me. I have now rode all sections and have a pretty good idea of each section. It is my goal before leaving Uzbekistan to complete the circumnavigation of the lake. The lake is formed by 168 meter high stone dam and captures three rivers.

We finished Fall Break today. After coming back from Amirsoy Resort on Thursday, I worked at school in the afternoon and on Friday. We managed to play tennis three times over the weekend. On Friday night, Oliver and I had a session with coach Igor. Ollie is rapidly improving his ground strokes and is almost ready to become a good partner. I hope he continues coming to training sessions. Owen and I played a singles match on Saturday and then Nadia and I played our friends, the Doels on Sunday. I absolutely love the game and it is convenient that tennis is popular in Tashkent. Courts are generally easy to reserve and cost around $5 per hour, more if you have a coach.

Autumn is in full force here in Tashkent. Nadia and I had a delightful walk in the park near the opera house. There are plenty of parks to walk dogs in the city. We were trying to get Obi to play in the leaves. He didn’t really like them, but he does love going on walks.

We met friends for a birthday brunch at the Hilton. The city is growing rapidly. In the panorama above, you can see Nest One, a 76-floor skyscraper project. The artificial lake and park is surrounded with new apartment complexes.

My wife Nadia and I celebrated 23 years together last night. Halloween is not really a romantic holiday, but for me it is, remembering back to 1997. I was teaching biology at the Santa Cruz Cooperative School in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Nadia was a first grade teacher assistant. For some reason I can’t remember, there were no classes on the Monday after Halloween. We took advantage of the long weekend to book a holiday to fly to neighboring Brazil. I wanted to visit the world’s largest tropical wetland and UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Pantanal. We were supposed to go with Nadia’s sister and her boyfriend at the time, but they pulled out at the last minute, so it ended up just being Nadia and me.

The wetlands support a diverse array of life and we saw caimanes, jabiru storks, purple macaws, etc. on our truck tours through the park. We stayed at a nice resort outside of the park. There was a karaoke bar at the hotel and Nadia sang Chris Deburgh’s “Lady in Red”. She has a lovely singing voice and I remember looking across the table at her. From that moment, I knew I was in love with her. 23 years later (and three children) we are still together and I still am in love with her. I was lucky to have met her and that we get along with each other for the long term.

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We had a pleasant meal at the 21 City Restaurant in the newly built Hilton. The restaurant overlooks Tashkent City, a huge development near the center of Tashkent. In the center is a park with restaurants, a running track, a pool and of course this being Central Asia, lots of colored LED lights. Around the park are apartment buildings that are almost ready for occupancy and in the corner, Nest One, a 76-floor skyscraper has about 25 floors erected. It is a Pan-Asian restaurant and we both had the pad Thai. We love Thai cuisine! There was live music and it was excellent, a mix of jazz, opera, pop music. The only complaint was the music was a little loud.

I had a quiet halloween because of COVID. On Friday night, the school hosted Scary Night. I dressed as a wolf and had a table distributing candy to groups of students who were together in their learning pods. I used hand sanitizer on my hands between groups. There was a full moon and with the trees and decorations on campus, the campus was beautifully “spooky”. Walking out of school after cleaning my station, I saw kids in their cars, happily counting their candy and parents glowing because of the sense of normalcy in this crazy year of the pandemic.

The pandemic is causing the leadership and teachers at school to adapt our programs, so I spent most of the day working with the leadership team on campus. In the late afternoon I took Obi for a walk around our neighborhood. In the morning, Ocean and Oliver had a virtual cross-country run in the park near Pakhator Stadium. The 3km and 6km event was hosted by the Anglo American School of Moscow. The rest of the day was spent shuttling teenagers around to their friends’ homes. We do not use taxis during the pandemic.

Our lives have changed much since the simpler times of being young teachers without children. We still are enjoying life together