Susan Oleksiw

 
In late September I joined a small tour of three countries in Central Asia: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. This was something I'd wanted to do since I read a travel memoir of the region when I was not yet a teenager. Life pushed the dream aside until a chance look through a travel brochure brought it back.
 
As a gardener interested in native plants I went off with the anticipation of learning about native plants of that region—an array of unfamiliar stems and leaves and flower petals. I didn't prepare by reading about the flora and fauna; I just went with my eyes and camera ready to photograph and record. The first public parks I walked through, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, had plenty of greenery, long paved pathways, and lots of benches. But no flowers. I branched out in neighborhoods of high-rise apartment blocks and the occasional school, craning my neck to get a look at potted plants on the many balconies leaning over the sidewalks. No luck. I came down with some kind of infection, and stayed mostly inside until we reached Samarkand. When I saw two young women with trowels and a six-pack of something I hurried over. And what were they planting? Pansies.
 
When I found gardens and window boxes and bunches of flowers in a corner stall, I found snap dragons, petunias, marigolds, and more. None of these are from Central Asia. Snapdragons are thought to come originally from the Mediterranean basin, Spain or Italy. Marigolds are native to Central and South Mexico. Pansies descend from a wildflower known in Europe and Western Asia. Petunias come from Peru and other parts of South America. The only flower I found native to this region is, to my surprise, the tulip, which is found in the foothills of Kyrgyzstan and other parts of the region.
 
I don't know why I should have been surprised. The point of the tour was to explore the history of the Silk Road, that network of trails from Turkey through the Middle East and into Northern Africa, to Central Asia and down into India or north and east into China and Tibet. Traders carried all sorts of goods along with ideas and religions and news from one end of the continent to the other, in both directions. Plants weren't a central part of it but seeds hitch rides all the time.
 
I had gone on this trip thinking I knew what to expect. I'd read a great deal about this part of the world, in both history texts and medieval journals. But it wasn't until I got home that I realized I'd had other expectations than horticultural.
 
All three nations separated from Russia and became sovereign states in 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. And this is where my expectations collided with reality. I'd read about the abandoned or nearly empty industrial cities in parts of Russia, with decaying apartment blocks, rusting factories, and staggeringly ugly abandoned city centers. I expected the Russian Rust Belt. But that's not what I found.
 
Tashkent was built by the Soviets, which is part of the explanation for its many grand buildings, but its appearance today is strictly the result of the Uzbeki people. The city is clean everywhere—no litter, no trash, no leaves blowing about. The parks and streets are swept daily. Even during morning rush hour a safety-vested worker, male or female, is sweeping the gutter clean. There is no graffiti. Everyone must have a car because the traffic jams at rush hour are everywhere. But no one honks their horn. Only once in Tashkent did I see any police officers, and they seemed to be talking casually to each other while cars flew by. Police cars with their lights flashing seem to park along the side of a street, just to take a break. Here again, the police are chatting with each other or a passer-by. Any resident I approached for information or directions was welcoming, curious, polite, even if they didn't know what street we were on (everyone seems to rely on cell phones and GPS).
 
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are presidential republics (like the US), and Kazakhstan is also but under an authoritarian government. Even so, the only time I saw a lot of police was in Samarkand and Bukhara, both well-established historical sites attracting tourists. These were the Tourist Police, and their offices had a large sign Department of Tourism Police (yes, in English). I don't recall seeing guards at various tourist sites—mosques, madrassas, bazaars, shopping districts. The same was true of sites in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
 
I did not expect to visit three countries barely heard about in the US and find three nations prospering—attractive cities indicative of thriving economies with able and confident populations. Younger people spoke enough English to help me find my way though they eschewed my tourist map for their GPS instructions.
 
This trip was a late in life surprise, a gift to myself. But I got a lot more out of it than an old dream realized. Before this tour, I had let myself slip into a series of assumptions without even thinking about it. As Americans we tend to think we're the center of the world because, for years, we have been. But as I traveled along the old Silk Road it became clear to me that we are only one successful nation among many. Although US newspapers carry little if any news of Central Asia during my first week the local Uzbeki news reported a deal between John Deere and the Uzbekistan government for $300 million for farm equipment.  
 
The history of the Silk Road and the polities along it is one of constant change. Every dynasty is overthrown, every empire reconfigured, every established idea pushed aside for something new. We are part of the cycle. And to understand that better, I have to get out of my bubble and learn more about other parts of the world little known to me. And along the way I can still hope to find plants and flowers new to me.