A Soviet Era School In Andijan

Time to get an an education on what a Cold War period school looks like.

Outside the front entrance, a small group of bird sculptures. Mascot?

Classroom. Auditorium dais.

Chairs and desks.

Sewing shop. Indoor gym.

A little freshen for the next semester. From quill to laptop!

Wandering Around Andijan, Uzbekistan

Ahh, what are some cool things to see in Andijan, a sizable town in the Fergana valley, Uzbekistan?

A man and his bovine.

Outside amphitheater grandstand. Simple village lunch.

Giant eagle sculpture, shading restaurant chairs.

Market meat. Damaged rabbit park ornament.

World War II monument with standard weeping mother statue. Time and city development moves forward.

Everything Is Available At Andijan's Eski Bazaar

In Uzbekistan, the local markets are the best places to shop. Huge, messy, busy, defiantly not just another grocery store chain outlet. Buy like they did on the Silk Road.

Behold big Eski Bazaar in Andijan.

Maybe start with a little spice and a little vegetable. You gotta get some nan bread from the beared bread man.

How are you going to cook your feast? Head to hardware and get a giant plov pot.

Don't forget the high sugar drinks. All sealed and ready for a quick purchase. A choosy shopper.

You need flour? You need flour! See this guy, he's got all the varieties.

Dioramas And Dead Things At The Andijan Museum Of History And Culture

What's a museum in Uzbekistan without a swashbuckling diorama or a parade of taxidermy? A boring museum. Hooray, Andijan's museum is definitely not boring.

Fly like an eagle. Or hawk. Or falcon. Or brown bird. Let's be safe with identifying it as some sort of brown bird.

Starting at the beginning, the Stone Age Man. Check out the mystery animal, monster, thingy that's about to emerge and attack. Rabid wombat? Moving forward in time, a depiction of a Silk Road era walled city. Love how the 2D painting does most of the 3D lifting.

More fun with 2D vs 3D. An Uzbek uprising in 1916. Basically, a mural with some columns and one and a half carts as foreground props.

Bird, perched on a massive stick jutting out of a mountain. Rats. Squeeze too hard and the stuffing pops out. And you might lose your talon. Ouch to everyone.

Shake that tail feather. With a little bush support.

The Andijan Museum Of History And Culture

Or Museum of Local Lore. The repository has several names. It's a typical museum for a small town in Uzbekistan, filled with old and recent history, handicrafts, maybe some paintings, a treasured plate. Time to take a tour.

Impressive outside. Enter now!

Before heading in, be sure to check out the elaborate, raised stone mural on the facade. Uzbek heritage in Soviet, Brutalist style. Inside, re-creating a painter's little studio.

Typical gallery room, filled with artifacts. Nice collection of wood cradles.

More old stuff. A classic, old chapan robe, in ikat style. A grave matter.

More paintings. Camels and fields of cotton, always good, local tropes.

Pottery From Rishtan, Uzbekistan

One of the craft specialties in Uzbekistan is pottery with intricate designs and the place to go for the best pieces is the town of Rishtan in the Fergana Valley. Several shops carry on a centuries old tradition of pottery design.

One of the best places to go is the Alisher Nazirov studio. Narzirov is a master ceramist and teacher of the traditional craft. His designs are recognized as its own school, style.

The Nazirov shop and studio. Catnip.

Excellent plates, all unique in style yet part of a traditional whole. Pick color.

Portrait of a man (not Nazirov) and his kiln. Hot stuff.

Traditional methods, a manual wheel. Monoculture, pieces waiting to be painted.

Rishtan has a handful of shops, schools devoted to pottery craft. No reason to be shy or humble about promoting the local work, plop a giant vase in a main roundabout. Boom!

Fun Taxidermy At Khudayar Khan Palace

Many attractions in Uzbekistan have been restored and then left with the quandary of what to put in all the lovely, empty rooms. Some fancy furniture, maybe textiles? Frequently, stuffed animals fill the void. Taxidermy rocks!

The Khudayar Khan Palace in Kokand devotes a little space to some dead creatures. The combination of old, stuffed animals against what looks like extreme blow ups of low-res photographs makes for a bit of a surreal impression.

Display cabinets with additional creatures that didn't make the cut into a case.

Hello eyeless...what? Deranged duck.

Owl, perhaps waiting on a tootsie pop.

Fierce pheasant. Another fuzzy animal. A mini bear with a shag overcoat? Fashionable wolf?

Back in the marsh, this duck did a bit of an over-bleach. Oh, the vanity.

The Palace of Khudáyár Khán in Kokand, Uzbekistan

Khudáyár Khán Palace was built in the 1870s by, well, Khudáyár Khán. You build it, you name it. Tsarist Russia showed up, eventually drove the Khan from his humble home and then the mean Bolsheviks destroyed most of the palace. No taste. Post-independent Uzbekistan has carried out a couple of restorations and today glimpses of old grandeur can be seen, as well as a couple of museums.

Good front on a grey day. A giant platform in the plaza is frequently present for shows, exhibitions.

Babushka and inner courtyard. Colorful column.

Throne room, fancy.

In case one takes the restoration for granted, there's a nice "before" section on display. All cleaned up! When few artifacts remain, you display what you have. Carts and a door.

In the museum for local tools, materials. On display, a funky, curved, semi diorama horse portrait thing. Inventive.