Oh yeah, a few days after the March 27 report on sugaring up north, MJ and I flew to Istanbul for a couple of days and then Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan until April 21 and 1400 photos later. One of those photos is at left, the tomb of Amir Timur (or, in the West, Tamur the Lame aka Tamerlane) in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. A terrific odyssey into the post Soviet world of Central Asia 15 years after the Russians told the Turkmen, Uzbeks and others that, like it or not, they were on their own. Independent, as it were. Of course, for many, that meant independence from jobs, housing, pensions, education. From cradle to grave. Hello, grave. The strongest party boss took power while the Russians took much of the parts and hardware from the factories and the citizens took a look around and said "whoa! Now what?" Some reached back into the family traditions dusted off neglected tools, revisited the skills of the older folks and fired up the cottage industries of ceramics, paper making, fiber art, jewelry making, etc.We visited many homes and small workshops and saw (and purchased) beautiful items while being treated to demonstrations and a meal. I'll get into more of this later but we also have a wedding being planned for September 27. 2008 and, to introduce the fiance, we shared Tickfest 2008 with the Schiavoni siblings. More on that later, too.
