Reading this led me to look for a map of the Tashkent Metro (for a silly reason I’ll mention in a second) which led me here. And from there, I found one of the coolest websites ever.
For the sake of all those who don’t read Russian, this .wav file is what I want you to check out. It’s a recording of the station announcement for the red line train going from Pakhtakor to Independence Square. It’s a little longer than your standard announcement because, if I remember correctly, you can switch lines at this station. My knowledge of Uzbek has never been superb and I could never catch all of what Metro-lady had to say. We came up with all kinds of fantastic translations, many involving giving a popular brand of tea to old people and children. That’s one of the wonderful things about Uzbeks, you can totally misunderstand their language and they seem thrilled that you at least recognize it’s Uzbek.*
The other cool thing about that particular recording is that I’ve been told that I do a dead-on impression of the cadence of Metro-lady’s announcement for Independence Square (the part of the recording that is “Keyinli bekat, Mustakilliq Maidoni” which I surely spelled incorrectly).
And why was I looking for the Metro map? My friend and I had determined that women on one of the two lines (the green line wasn’t operational when I was there) were more attractive. If memory serves, it’s the red line.
*I say this in this particular way because we played a game in Uzbek class one day where we had to say a color and an article of clothing. Anyone who had that combo (brown shoes for example) had to move when somebody (I can’t remember exactly) said “switch places” in Uzbek. Whoever got stuck in the middle had to do the color and clothing naming.
Anyway the Uzbek term was “Joy almashtiring” or something. I heard “Joel Masterson.” I kept saying “Joel Masterson.” My Uzbek teacher clapped and told me how well I was doing every time I said “Joel Masterson.” To this day, I introduce myself as “Joel Masterson” when I need an alias.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2973 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.
For information on reproducing this article, see our Terms of Use
