8. DEJA VU IN BUKHARA

A LANEWAY IN BUKHARA

A STRANGE WALK THROUGH STRANGELY FAMILIAR PLACES

Next morning after the usual breakfast of flat bread, glass of thick yoghurt, black tea and fried eggs, I set out to walk through the old city of Bukhara, the Moslem quarter where homes were hidden behind high walls and narrow alleys led to domed market places. 

I had only walked a few hundred yards down the street when a car pulled alongside.  It was Sasha with a Missouri farmer called Jeff and a Guatemalan plantation owner.  They were on their way to a local tea house; would I care to join them?

 ‘We are going to my most favourite place in all of Bukhara,’ Sasha told us as the car negotiated winding alleys and narrow lanes.

He parked the car in a quiet almost deserted square where all the buildings had high walls and no windows. There was not another soul around. I stepped out of the car and looked about, feeling a sudden and inexplicable surge of recognition. How on earth could I explain this strange sense of belonging, these familiar surroundings?

 I felt completely at home.  Was this odd feeling of awareness  what some people called déjà vu?

Sasha opened a wooden gate in a high brick wall and we entered an oasis of beauty and shade...an open courtyard dominated by spreading mulberry trees.  Under the leafy branches were six tapchans or wooden beds for locals to sit upon and play backgammon, sip tea or just count their beads.

The tapchans were varnished and highly polished and covered with a bright kelim or carpet in the middle of which was a small table. The teahouse was part of an old madrassah or school and the buildings surrounding the open courtyard housed an artisan’s commune where coppersmiths and weavers worked their craft. A huge copper samovar polished to a golden sheen dominated the servery where our tea was being prepared.

With Sasha and Jeff the Missouri farmer, and the Gautemalan sitting at a tapchan in the open air tea house

Following Sasha’s lead we took off our shoes and sat up on the tapchans, leaning back on the bed ends.  Our host sat easily, his legs crossed, Jeff and I, both tall, draped ourselves ungainly under the little centre table while the more plump Guatemalan sat crossways with his feet on the ground.  

Two men on a tapchan next to ours played backgammon; Sasha sat back, relaxed, and fingered his beads as Greeks do their worry beads.

The teahouse attendant brought our green tea in an orange teapot with four glasses and a plate of Arab sweets...nougats and sugary confections.  A radio played in the background, the music of the Arab world, shrill and discordant but not unpleasant. 

The atmosphere was tranquil, like being in a private world.  If I lived in Bukhara this would be my favourite place too...perhaps it once had been.

We passed the time discussing everything and nothing, from Missouri winters to the price of coffee.  I was very aware how privileged I was to be included, Uzbek women by and large don’t join in their men’s social lives.

We next visited an artist friend of Sasha, Dumond Park, his family were of Korean origin.  His studio was in a run down part of Bukhara in a partially demolished and very old building.

His paintings were large and many and my companions from the tour group bought a number to ship home.  I had to be content with a few of his smaller postcard size etchings, one of them the introduction to all posts in this series, another seen below.

I had decided to walk back to the hotel and left the others to return in Sasha’s car.  He had given me directions but I didn't need them.  In the maze of walled alleys and lanes it seemed I picked my way unerringly, turning corners and crossing streets until I found myself in a narrow paved thoroughfare divided by a man made aqueduct.  

The stream or canal was narrow and contained within waist high brick walls on which small children played, chasing each other and balancing, arms outstretched.  

Ahead, gossiping and enjoying the sunshine, three older women sat on a section of the wall. They were dressed in their traditional costume, paisley shawls and head scarves in red, green and blue patterns over matching floral dresses. Each outfit was colour co-ordinated with plain wool socks and cardigans and soft felt slippers.

Three ladies of Bukhara

They smiled a greeting and I was startled by the resemblance of the lady in the middle to my long dead grandmother....the same features, olive complexion, even her expression as she gestured to my camera.  As I took photographs I almost expected her to call me by  name. 

We conversed by pantomime and finger counting, the lady in the middle was in her mid seventies and between them they had 12 grandchildren. The old ladies wore tasteful jewellery of old gold, bracelets and rings, and in their pierced ears delicate emeralds and rubies. The walled house across from where they sat belonged to the youngest of the three.

When I left the three ladies of Bukhara I continued on my way, past little shops that sold sticky sweets and sacks of grain, a tiny barber shop with room for only one customer. I caught up with a man on a donkey who averted his face when I lifted the camera. 

But strangely, in this maze of nameless streets I didn't have to ask directions, without hesitation I turned corners, traversed streets,  found the way out of that old quarter through a park into Lenin Square and back to the Intourist hotel.

I try to keep an open mind on the mysteries of life and death and possible reincarnation, to me all is impossibly possible, but of this I am sure, in Bukhara on that day, I experienced a sense of history, of a belonging that I cannot possibly nor rationally explain.

The ‘People to People’ caravan left early next day in their air-conditioned sputnik buses for Samarkand, 230 kilometres across the desert.  I asked Mustoora where I could find the local bus for Samarkand.  She was horrified.

‘The journey would take all day,’ she warned me.

I didn't mind, I wasn't on a strict timetable.  She went on to insist that women didn't travel alone in this part of the country, a woman alone would command no respect, she said.

Such a short distance, surely I wouldn't offend anyone...I really wanted to travel by bus.

‘If you had a companion it would be possible, but for you alone...the driver would not sell you a ticket.’

‘If you spoke to the driver....’ 

‘No.  It is out of the question.’

She spoke with such finality I could do nothing but put myself in her hands.

‘There is a flight leaving later this afternoon, I will see if they have space for you.  Come back after lunch.’

As it happened Mustoora had confirmation almost immediately and joined me in the dining room.  I invited her to share chai with me, and of course I questioned her about her life.

She was Uzbek born of an ethnic Uzbek father and Iranian mother.  She had studied languages and travelled abroad for Intourist as an interpreter.

‘For many years I enjoyed my life travelling and seeing the world, but my father was not pleased.  He insisted I return home and marry.’ At this point Mustoora extended her hand in a futile gesture the palm upturned, ‘I held off as long as I could, but when I turned 32, my father arranged for me to marry an Uzbek engineer.’

Through the story Mustoora maintained an offhand, resigned attitude. She held the most senior position here at the hotel and was a tough lady as her interrogation of me the night I arrived had demonstrated.

‘That was twelve years ago, and with marriage my travels ended...’she shrugged, ‘...but at least my husband understood my need to have a career.  So he allows me to work here, for Intourist.’

‘Are you happy,’ I asked her?

‘Happy?’ She paused to mull over my question before she finally replied, ‘I have a son, he is my life.   No I'm not happy, but I tell you this...I am lucky.’

She had already told me that her name, Mustoora, means obedience.

________________

  

Episode 9  Flight to Samarkand  Flight to Samarkand

 

© Robyn Mortimer 2010

      

7. IN BUKHARA THE AGONY OF TIPPING

In the once grand gardens of the harem

WHERE  LONE TRAVELER'S ARE SUSPECT

The flight west to Bukhara was over increasingly arid country.  

Mile after mile of dry sandy plain with only occasional dams and narrow waterways.  The plane landed on dusk and I stepped from the tarmac into a rose scented garden of tangled vines and fairy lights.  This airport terminal was smaller and more informal than those at either Tashkent or Frunze.  Waiting friends and relations had the friendly manner of country people; everyone down to the smallest child was greeted with warmth and handshakes.

The Intourist office had closed. I searched through the small building for someone who perhaps spoke English, no one did.  A young man took my bag and found a ‘tax-ee’ to take me to an ‘o-tel’. The cab was really a private car, but the young man stressed the driver was alright with the universal thumbs up sign and then counted to twenty five roubles, the fare I should pay.  He refused a tip and I gave him a kangaroo pin instead.

Bukhara on the banks of the Zeravshan River was deep in desert country, the Kyzyl Kum or Red Sands Desert and the Russian ‘dobraye utra’ would now become the Moslem salutation ‘Salaam Aleikum.’

We drove through empty streets into a huge open square and pulled up in a side street by the modern multi storey Intourist Bukhoro Hotel. I guessed that because his wasn't an official taxi he couldn't drive up to the front door, so I dragged my belongings up twenty steps to the swinging door of the entrance and asked reception for a room.

For a moment you could have heard a pin drop.  Had I been a Martian from outer space I doubt my arrival could have caused such suspicion. Where had I come from...did I have a voucher...where was my visa?

The receptionist called a superior who promptly got on the phone to someone else.  A lot of Russian was flying back and forth.  A woman looked through my visa and told me I had no permission to even be in Bukhara.

I was no expert in the Russian alphabet but I could recognize the letters that stood for Bukhara amidst all the other towns Mitzi back in Singapore had randomly included in my application and humbly pointed them out to her.  Now wasn't the time to be stroppy.

I could see the hotel reception was thronged with tourists. 

Maybe they didn't have room for me.  The inquisition was running out of steam, the lady in charge asked what I was doing in Bukhara, was I a journalist?  I assured her I was just traveling through, a housewife if she needed an official designation.

 

The lady in charge identified herself as Mustoora and said they would give me a room but I would have to pay in hard currency, US$ dollars.   She quoted seventy five dollars and I presumed this covered the same meals as Frunze.  She asked if I had eaten and then took me across to the dining room.

‘The head waiter will find you a table,’ she said, ‘it is best you reward him now before you eat.  He has, what you say...absolute power about what food you get.’

I couldn't believe what she was saying and thought she must be pulling my leg. But no, Mustoora was very serious though I did sense a touch of sarcasm, obviously there was no love lost between the two hotel employees.  I wondered if it was simply that the head waiter was Russian and she was Uzbek.  In any case I thanked her for taking the trouble to warn me.

It was a very large dining room with a stage at one end and to the side, through sliding glass doors, a long ornamental pool. The waiters were dressed in black trousers and white shirts and wore the black and white skullcap of the Uzbeks. The head waiter sat at a table just inside the door.

I pondered how much I should slip him and in which currency.  Not roubles, I decided.  They really weren't worth very much, yet to give him five or ten dollars as I might in Australia was really out of all proportion to the cost of the meal. I was thinking fast, remembering clumsy past failures at bribery,  oh well I decided...as I was going to be in Bukhara for a while  I may as well gain the reputation of a big spender.  I discreetly palmed him a US$10 note, or if you looked at it another way, a month’s wages.

 

The maitre'd bowed slightly, showed me to a table and food was brought.  The dining room was a hub of activity. At this late hour there were no tourist groups eating but every table was taken by locals.  A band played western music and couples danced. I could see the head waiters desk, and not only did he have power over the food he also decided who got a table and who didn't.  He spent the entire evening pocketing bribes and tips.  I found mine well spent if only for the way dining staff sprang to attention when next I entered.

The Bukhoro Hotel had a hard currency bar in the basement for foreign guests.  One drawback in being female and traveling alone is that in most places you're restricted to staying indoors after dark.  Bukhara would probably have been safe enough, though Cari's warning in Frunze still rang in my ears.

Playing it safe, I wandered down the spiral stairway to the tiny bar, a long narrow room with a strobe light for atmosphere and shelves against a mirrored wall well stocked with foreign spirits and wines.  There was an espresso machine that I never saw used, and high up on the end wall, a colour television showing a news bulletin from Moscow.

American tourists were grouped at tables.  I bought a coffee, instant from a jar, and angled my seat at the bar towards the television.  A tall man in a blue cotton sweat suit invited me to join his table, he spoke in a Texan drawl and his name was Jerry.
 

We exchanged introductions; Jerry was part of a tour, the highly organised ‘People to People’ caravan comprising specialists from such diverse fields as medicine, farming and industry.  At first they thought I was part of their hundred strong tour group and achieved minor notoriety when they learned I was alone.

Jerry, who appeared to be the shaker and mover of the tour, had discovered some black market Bukhara rugs for sale in a nearby home.  Together with Dawn, who described herself as the groups official trouble shooter, and two others, we slipped away to find the house where Sasha lived.

With Dawn the trouble shooter - later in Samarkhand

 Finding our way along the unlit streets armed with a solitary torch, or as Jerry called it, a flashlight, we located Sasha’s apartment on the ground floor of a double story block within walking distance of the hotel.  

We slipped our shoes off at the door and were shown into a lounge room lined with books in many languages.  Sasha’s wife and daughter made no appearance though a little later his six year old son was introduced.  The carpets were displayed on the floor.

They were beautiful and very reasonable but I left the bargaining to the Americans.  Unlike the others I had to carry my own baggage and instead I bought a colourful embroidered ‘Suzanna’...a large cotton throw over, once a part of every young Uzbek girl’s trousseau.

 Sasha slipped out of the room, and returned with a tray of refreshments.   I thought it odd that his wife had made no appearance, particularly after he mentioned she was from Germany.  

Next morning I asked Mustoora for a map in English so I could find my way around the town.  There was nothing in print, she explained, and all the English speaking guides were with the four huge air conditioned ‘Sputnik’ buses from Moscow carrying the ‘People to People’ caravan.  At that moment Sasha walked up to the counter and recognized me from the night before. 

Mustoora explained my problem and Sasha said there was plenty of room on his bus, why not simply join the group for the days touring. I didn't think it would be that easy and suggested to Sasha that surely those in charge would object.

‘Come,’ he took my arm, ‘we will ask Lena from Moscow, she is in charge of everything.’

Lena from Moscow, a thin waif-like girl in her early twenties, looked me over and nodded and I boarded the bus to find I was sitting behind Dawn the trouble shooter who was surprised the Russians had allowed me to tag along, but nevertheless was pleased to see me.

With the suave Sasha as our English speaking guide we set off for the Emirs Palace, a series of single story wooden buildings with blue paint work weathered by countless dust storms and the passage of centuries.

14th CENTURY EMIRS PALACE BUKHARA

Inside was a treasure trove of ancient ceramics and paintings but I preferred to wander outside in the gardens of the harem and imagine the women who had lived there in the past.  

Very little of the garden had changed, perhaps the landscaping would have been more formal back then, and of course people like me would never have been allowed inside. It took little imagination to hear tinkling music and the chatter of women against softly trickling water. Sitting under shady vines within those same walls, I wondered how the women of the Emirs harem had felt,  privileged or  prisoners held against their will.

 

Lagging behind on our way back to the bus, I turned a corner and came upon a group of Turkmen from Turkmenistan, bearded old men with long brown duster coats edged with colourful braid over western style suits. 

What made me excited though were the brown, lamb’s wool headgear they wore.  Probably made from the karakul sheep the hats were like an immense shaggy version of the bearskins worn by the Guard at Buckingham Palace. 

It gave the men a wonderfully fierce appearance and I desperately wanted their photograph but I hesitated to just barge up and start clicking.   Turkmen are orthodox Sunni Muslims who still regard their women as second class.  I approached a Russian man with them and held up my camera. I needn't have worried; the old men posed self consciously but wouldn't let me go until I had captured each one of them on film.  One of the many times I regretted not having a Polaroid camera.

GENTLEMEN FROM TURKMENISTAN

The bus stopped next at the infamous 6th century Ark Citadel or fort where the British explorers Connolly and Stoddart were brutally executed in 1842 after a lengthy imprisonment in a snake pit. Watching Sasha entertain the tour group with dark stories of Bukhara’s history it was hard to realise only 150 years separated this charming and articulate man from his torturous and bloodthirsty forebears.

Across from the Ark Fort, we walked through the beautiful Balo-hauz Mosque, an exceptional 18th century example of Islamic architecture.  It's most breathtaking features were the twenty elegant carved wood columns fronting the marble and mosaic facade.  

The columns soared almost 80 feet high and reflected in the waters of a large round pond gave the mosque its other name - The Forty Columns. A teapot and cup by the side of the murky green waters, said to be health giving, indicated people still drank from the stagnant pool. I tried not to think about it.

On the bus I met an Australian with the program, Dr. Katie from Canberra who said she found the American support team amazing with interpreters, trouble-shooters even an entire medical support team able to cope with any emergency.  Organisers had thought of everything, she said, right down to the slightest detail like supplying twine, sticky tape and carry bags for souvenirs that wouldn't squash into suitcases.  She told me the 13 day tour had cost around US$5,000 per person.

Dawn later told me the medical team comprised doctors and nurses with supplies of oxygen, plasma, and western equipment.  If necessary the doctors with the group were even equipped to perform surgery. I gathered local hospitals were best avoided. Later in Samarkand, an elderly woman became ill with a heart complaint and was flown out to Moscow and then on to an American base hospital in Germany. 

The People to People tour, Dawn explained, was part of the Citizen Ambassador Program, a private non-profit non-political organisation head-quartered in Kansas City, Missouri, which encouraged communication among the peoples of the world.  It had been founded by President Eisenhower in 1956.

That night I joined a small party in the basement bar.  Sasha was telling the story of a young Jewish girl from the Ukraine fleeing the Germans during world war two and meeting a young Moslem man in Bukhara...his mother and father.

You see,’ he extended his hands,’ I am very fortunate, through my mother...in the Synagogue, I am a Jew....and through my father...in the Mosque, I am a Moslem...I have access to both worlds.’

Sasha hinted at the underlying ethnic problems facing Uzbekistan and the threat of Islamic fundamentalism.  He said there were no true Uzbeks in Bukhara.  Mostly, the people here originated from Kazakhstan or Turkmenia, Iran, Afghanistan, Arabia ...even from Turkey.  But when the Russians realigned boundaries they said only Uzbeks could live in that particular region to be known thereafter as Uzbekistan.  

People could no longer call themselves Turks or Iranians...if they insisted then they must return to those countries.  So families that had lived centuries in Bukhara remained and fell under the general mantle of Uzbeks.  The majority spoke Farsi, the language of Iran and similar to that of Turkey. He suggested that should Uzbekistan be invaded in the future, the threat would come from those two countries. 

 

We quizzed him on conditions since perestroika and he shrugged, ‘We have suffered in the past, fools have run the country and food has been scarce.  But now we keep for ourselves the food we grow. We have greater worries though... little countries with large bombs.’

 

Not so very long before Sasha wouldn’t have dared venture his opinions in public; especially with foreigners.  He went on to say it was the old people who found it hard to accept that the world had changed and Russia was no longer their master.  As an example he told us about his mother.

‘She is getting on now, I try to see her each day or at least speak on the telephone to her. To amuse, I tell little jokes about my work and perhaps the joke might be about the Kremlin or the K.G.B.’ ‘You must remember,’ he went on’ my mother lived through terrible times...first the Nazis and then the purges of Stalin.  Old people are still very frightened; they don't believe their status has changed. 

My mother says to me ‘...Sasha, Sasha...be careful what you are saying...walls have ears.  They hear everything.  You must leave the house quickly, now, go to friends...don't stay the night.’

‘My son,’ Sasha added ‘may Allah be praised, will never experience such terror.’

___________

Episode 8   Deja Vu in Bukhara

©Robyn Mortimer 2010

6. WOMEN OF CENTRAL ASIA

BABUSHKA'S

 

I didn’t plan to base my story on the women of Central Asia.  Instead as I moved around the country a pattern emerged and gradually, without realising it, their story became my story. 

The women I met and conversed with in the two central Asian countries of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan were in themselves a contradiction of their birth place.  They were wonderfully erudite, elegant in a European manner, excellent in their work but completely dominated by men of their family and by the state’s Communist Party. Russia may have begun to remove itself from their satellite countries, but its dominion and influence still remained; and to add to the woes of these women they had still to contend with the looming threat of total control by either Muslim and tribal fathers or husbands.

In many ways they lived in a catch 22 situation.  Under Russian rule the women  could work at jobs their husbands and fathers would never have allowed, enjoying a freedom their work ensured.  But now with the obvious breaking up of these small USSR countries, while happy to see the Russians go, many were also dreading a return to male domination and even worse to the  veil and chador.

 

I found these women fitted a certain pattern, but I’ll let you decide that for yourselves.  We will start with Mina of Frunze.  To protect their identity, because in some cases they opened their hearts perhaps unwisely,  I have changed their names.

MINA

Queuing for ice cream in Frunze

Back at the Ala Too Hotel Mina had my Russian money and counted it out, 1600 roubles. I tucked it away in the wallet I wear round my neck and we set off to see the sights. 

At this stage I didn't doubt the rate of exchange.  Later as Mina recounted the impossible cost of living, constantly refusing my offer of payment for her company, deriding the growing mafia and the black market it spawned and yet was able to locate rare and beautiful art books for me to purchase, in foreign currency of course,  I realised the guilt she was struggling to live with. 

I didn't begrudge her a share of the transaction, to claim knowledge would have embarrassed her deeply. I only hoped she made a handsome profit from my small purchases.

Frunze, I'll stick to that name because even Mina, an ethnic Kyrgyz still used it rather than its new name Bishkek, reminded me of an old German city.  It had a stately, European feel.  We walked down wide avenues where tree branches met overhead ... oaks, chestnuts, birch, fir...all now dropping their leaves, ankle deep in some parts, but Mira told me, providing a wonderfully cool canopy in the summer.

 Shady nature strips in the middle of wide roads merged into parks with sculptured fountains and patriotic statues.  We walked through the park into the big and impressive Soviet Square that had been designed as a forum for parades and political rallies. Facing the square were stately columned theatres and art galleries looking like props for an elaborate spaghetti western. 

We had been walking for the best part of an hour enjoying the crisp air and the sunshine before I realised we had passed no billboards or advertising signs, no visual pollution. I wondered how long it would take for emerging advertising moguls to rectify that unnecessary need.

Before the revolution, Mina told me, Frunze or Bishkek as it was known those seventy odd years before, had been a small tribal town centered round an old wooden fort.  Ignoring the political changes be they for good or bad, Frunze now was a centre of great beauty and serenity with cultural amenities far superior to most Australian cities.  In size it equated roughly with mid size provincial towns like Toowoomba or Armidale yet Frunze supported four theatres of drama, opera and ballet, a puppet theatre, permanent circus, six museums and art galleries. 

Mina made no mention and I remained, for a while, in ignorance of the shanty towns on the other side of Frunze where people faced the coming winter without power or water.

We passed small picture theatres showing Russian and Indian Bollywood movies. On the footpath outside Frunze’s largest department store private entrepreneurs had set up stalls selling oddments of clothing and shoes and whatever else they had managed to scrounge.  

One stall might have no more than half a dozen pair of second hand shoes, another a few dresses or some underwear. Gypsy women mingled in the crowd hawking packets of cigarettes.  Officially cigarettes are rationed to two packets a month.

Inside the four story department store I was stunned by the empty shelves.  In some sections staff had attempted to disguise the bareness by draping plastic shopping bags between items. There wasn't much variety in the goods that were on offer, rows of identical garments, ugly styles, and poor quality fabric all highly priced.

Apart from rubber galoshes there were no shoes at all for sale in the footwear section, just rows of empty shelves and staff standing idly about not even trying to conceal their boredom.

I asked how on earth people managed, what did they do when their shoes inevitably fell to pieces. We had been walking down the stairs to the second floor, and ignoring people around us; Mina stopped and took off one of her navy court shoes indicating the leather sole.  The shoe had obviously been repaired to within an inch of its life.

‘There is a man I know who sometimes brings in shoes from Europe.  If he finds a pair to fit me they will cost one thousand roubles.’  Other shoppers pushed past us as Mina balancing on the step below me, replaced her shoe. ‘It takes me a long time to accumulate such money, my pay when I get it, is only five hundred roubles a month.’

As we strolled back to the hotel I let Mina ramble on, she was after all an Intourist guide, she told me that Kyrgyz translated means forty tribes or clans; that over 70 nationalities were now represented in the peoples of Kyrgyzstan; and that before the revolution her country had not even had an alphabet for their spoken language. Once all this token propaganda had been offered, and digested on my part, we sat down on a park bench and got stuck into some 'girl talk'.

Mina was an extremely attractive woman in her early forties, her father had been a senior judge in Kyrgyzstan’s judiciary. She had originally studied the Italian language and traveled abroad with trade delegations.  In Rome she had met the love of her life, an Italian architect.  Mina’s big brown eyes glistened with tears as she told me how precious her life had been then, fifteen years before. She was spending more and more of her time in Italy, she and the architect fell deeply in love and before long sought permission to marry from Russian party officials.

Permission was denied, the Italian was refused entry into the U.S.S.R. and Mina was abruptly transferred to Intourist duties within Kyrgyzstan and prevented from returning to him in Italy. Her lovely face clouded with emotion, she sighed, and described it as a tragedy of the heart.

I asked had she thought about contacting him now that so many barriers were down and she shook her head.  A few years earlier, her Italian architect passed through Frunze with a tour group and made contact with Mina. 

‘He had with him,’ she told me her eyes welling with tears, ‘his new wife and baby daughter.’

Mina had resisted efforts by her father to marry her off to local men.  ‘I have known too much freedom, how could I live as a prisoner?’ She now resigned herself to being a spinster and lived with her widowed mother in a tiny apartment.

We sat for a moment in silence; then she sighed again and indicated we should move on. I found it difficult to find appropriate words of comfort. Mina was left with only fond memories of her Italian and I could hardly make comment on the insensitivity of the male of the species.  I should think Soviet versions of ‘Mills and Boon’ would sell a million.

Selling fish in Frunze

A street vendor in Frunze, fish from the nearby sea, in reality  Lake Issyk Kul , one of the world's largest mountain lakes. Note the abacus used to calculate prices. The woman surveying his wares most probably wishes she could afford to buy.

A short while after I took this photo a policeman tried to confiscate my camera.  When I explained I spoke no Russian he realised I was a ‘tourista’.  He and the stallholders then relaxed and joked about the mistake.

They had assumed I was a Russian and possibly a KGB spy.

______________

I never did get to the Frunze Circus that initially influenced  my itinerary.  Mira had booked a ticket for me and arranged a taxi pick up for that night.  But then I bumped into Cari in the foyer of the hotel, he was off to a business meeting. 
 
When I told him my plans for the night, he became visibly upset.

'No, you must not go out at night unescorted', he said.  'It is far too dangerous.'

Of course I argued that a taxi there and a taxi back should ensure my safety.  But he soon convinced me that there were taxi drivers and there were petty criminals, and a foreigner alone, male or female, was an easy target.

Instead I stayed home alone, gazing out over the flimsy little balcony and wondering what the next day would bring.

________

Episode 7  The Agony of Tipping

Robyn Mortimer ©2010