According to FC Kuruvchi’s official website, Eto’o will visit Uzbekistan Football Federation office and meet with management of UFF. The FC Barcelona delegation will also visit sights of Tashkent, especially historical complex ‘Khazrati-Imam’. During the second half of the day, Eto’o will give a press-conference for mass media representatives in the hotel InterContinental-Tashkent, where he is staying during his visit.

Rumors have spread that Kuruvchi paid 40 million USD to Barcelona for transfer. For Uzbek sport, it is an unbelievably high price (with average salary in the country being $80-100). However, with sponsors like Zeromax, Uzneftegaz, UzGazOil, FC Kuruvchi can afford such transfers.

UK’s Telegraph quotes Kuruvchi’s sporting director Bahtiyor Babayev saying that Samuel Eto’o will sign a contract with Kuruvchi at least up until the end of 2008.

The term of the contract will depend on our performance in the AFC Champions League. We will play Saipa in the quarter-finals and Eto’o is our main purchase before the knockout stage of the tournament… The defining moment of the transfer was not money, but the friendly mutual relations between the management of our club and Barcelona. The personal friendship between presidents of the clubs has noticeably lowered the transfer fee.

However, they also quote a spokesperson from the Spanish club, who proved that everything was nothing more than rumors.

Nobody at the club knows anything about this and I really don’t think it is very likely.

***

Just noticed that Telegraph misspelled Uzbekistan

Here are photos of the evacuation.

More links:

Video of kids playing bomb shells.

Google Earth pictures of the ammunition storage in Kagan

Via blog RealUzbekistan

STATEMENT ON EMERGENCY SITUATION IN KAGAN DISTRICT OF BUKHARA REGION

It has already been reported that at night of July 10th 2008 in a rocket-artillery warehouse of the military unit of the Ministry of Defence located in Kagan district of Bukhara region an ignition took place which has turned into fire and explosion of ammunition kept in the warehouse.

According to the results of our preliminary monitoring the area of the incident has been surrounded by forces of Bukhara regional Department of Internal Affairs and military servicemen of the Ministry of Defence. Civilian population living in 15-18 kilometers around the epicenter of the incident has been evacuated.

Military servicemen of the Ministry of Defence, employees of the regional departments of emergency situation and internal affairs are involved in neutralization of emergency. The governmental Commission made up from the heads of the Uzbek Government, National Security Service, Public Procurator’s Office, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Emergency Situation, Ministry of Internal Affairs and other tstate bodies was created. We do not know yet how effectively the above mentioned state bodies are coping with their task of neutralization of the emergency situation, taking necessary security measures and rendering assistance to the victims. (more…)

Everyone, who is interested in Central Asia, knows that Samarkand and Bukhara are the most ancient and history-rich places in the region. And they dream about visiting these extremely beautiful places to trace the history of Central Asian nations themselves.

Today, Bukhara and Samarkard are one of the highly touristic cities in Central Asia. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the tourism infrastructure has been developing in extremely rapid manner, as people realized that tourism brings lots of money into the country. However, there is much to be done.

A friend of mine sent me a link to the interesting post at a Silk-Polyester Blend blog, where the author writes about his experiences during his trip along the Silk Road. In the post, the author shows his admiration of sights in Bukhara.

There are a lot of fascinating sights in the city… The neatest sight in the city was the Ark, the former palace of the Emir of Bukhara. The citadel is large and served as the seat of the prince until the Soviets attacked and destroyed most of the building… Bukhara also has a some of stunning medressas and religious buildings, many of them spectacular at night…

However, the author also writes about his bad experience as a tourist in Bukhara. (more…)

Officials stated 3 people were killed and 21 injured. However, eyewitnesses say that the real numbers are way more than that. Bukhara hospitals are full of people injured during the explosions. All residents of Kagan were evacuated to Bukhara, as there was a potential threat of yet unexploded shells, warheads and bombs in the area. Recent news say that evacuated residents of Kagan are getting back to their homes [ru] and the city has returned to its normal life again

Here are the Google Earth photos of Kagan and the ammunition storage in its suburbs. The database of Google Earth pictures is old, as of last winter, it seems.

(more…)

Uzbek philanthropy has long historical roots. From ancient times, hashar has been one of the integral parts of the Uzbek culture. Hashar is a voluntary work of a group of people to help a poor or needy person. Personally, I had participated in many hashars and I can say for sure that people enjoy it. People enjoy doing hashar, as they know that they are helping a needy person. They are sure that if tomorrow they will be in need, others will help just like this - enjoying it. And no need to ask or invite people to come to hashar. All you need is just tell them [community, relatives] you are doing hashar and I am sure everyone will do their best to come and help you. If they cant come, they buy some food for those, who work in your hashar. I dont know whether or not this exists in other cultures, but hashar surely one of the interesting features of Uzbek society.

Looking at new videos in Youtube, I came across to a very interesting piece of video, where a young Uzbek student helps people living along Mississippi river, US, to stop the record-rising level of the river with the help of sandbags. Uzbek even in America remains Uzbek

Recently, all leading state-controlled TV companies in Uzbekistan had broadcast an about hour long program about the Radio Ozodlik (RFE/RL Uzbek service), where they accused the RFE/RL Uzbek service staff of being “traitors” who bring “unfriendly” messages into the country and thus attempt to destabilize the situation in Uzbekistan. The program was broadcast at prime-time in the evening, when families get together to have a dinner and watch TV at the same time (Uzbek culture). It is also a time when Korean/Turkish made soap operas, much beloved by Uzbeks, begin. So, I guess the program had a really big audience. The program was broadcast in the beginning of June and recently was rebroadcast again.

I had a chance to talk with a person, who had watched the program on the First Channel (‘Uzbekistan’). According to him, the program was neatly prepared and it was obvious that a lot of effort was put in it. It began discussing about the RFE/RL in general and ended showing pictures of each RFE/RL Uzbek service staff and telling home addresses of their relatives, and names of their schools and works. He remembers the narrator of the program saying:

… These people [RFE/RL Uzbek service staff] say that Uzbekistan is not a democratic country, where human rights are being constantly violated. What an obvious lie they are trying to convey to us! And even if you don’t believe, they keep repeating it…

Personally, I could not keep from smiling when heard this from my interlocutor, who watched the program on state-controlled TV channel. However, he also said that most people already do not believe in such “programs” by the government, as people lost their trust in the Uzbek mainstream media that is controlled by the government.

RFE/RL expressed their concern about the security of their staff and their relatives in Uzbekistan. The reason for that is that back in 2007, few weeks before Alisher Saipov, ethnic Uzbek journalist from Kyrgyzstan, was fatally shot in front of his office, the state-controlled Namangan TV broadcast a program that smeared him. Now, there is a great possibility that relatives of RFE/RL Uzbek service staff could be somehow oppressed by the Uzbek government.

Many international human rights watchdogs expressed their solidarity with RFE/RL staff. RFE/RL website quotes Andrew Stroehlein, media director for the International Crisis Group (ICG).

These television stations are known to have close links with the security services, and it’s very well known that last year, when they vilified another journalist by the name of Alisher Saipov, he was murdered very shortly after.

Jeffrey Gedmin, RFE/RL president, called the program “a direct and deliberate attempt to endanger our journalists.” I guess it was. Otherwise why to give all that journalists’’ private information? Jeffrey Gedman also wrote in a written statement that: “The Uzbek government has produced these broadcasts to portray our journalists as criminals, and therefore either to incite attacks against them or to condition viewers for attacks it may seek to perpetrate itself. These are the acts of an outlaw regime, not of a respectable government.”

Today, Uzbekistan is trying to meet EU standards on human rights to prepare grounds for mutual cooperation on security and energy issues. Recently, Tashkent hosted an international media conference, the quality and validity of which, however, is still under question. Several human rights activists were released. If the Uzbek government really wants to cooperate with EU and/or US, it should now take the relatives and close people of RFE/RL staff under its patronage, as any incident that may happen to them, even if the Uzbek government is not involved in it, may be speculated in western media as an act prepared by the Uzbek security services to assault RFE/RL Uzbek service workers.

Here is the highlights of the match.

Well, as a fan of Uzbekistan, I am very upset with the results of the match. However, as a football fan, I say “bravo” to Saudi Arabia for great goals!