Bread

In the crowded market, there is no respite. The endless scurry and buzz of the buyers and sellers flies in the face of the dusty heat of mid-afternoon, which commands lethargy. Scarved women move through, wearing long dresses of printed fabric in screaming loud colors, their ready smiles revealing walls of golden teeth. Stocky men in long overcoats and four-sided embroidered caps clasp their hands together in the small of their backs and study the goods with a wary eye and a practiced indifference, ready to haggle for even the smallest reduction in price.

Young men, some of them boys really, watch over stalls selling tape cassettes of unclear provenance, with photocopied insert cards but no labels. Other boys man stalls that offer cold drinks mixed on the spot, dribbling candy-colored syrup from racks of glass tubes into carbonated water. Butcher stalls reek in the heat from the blood of freshly slaughtered animals as shoppers inspect the offerings and argue for a better cut for their money.

No respite, that is, except for the tea houses, where people sit in the shade, sometimes on elevated platforms with divans and low tables; at other times around western-style tables and chairs. Placed before them are pots of tea — green or black? with milk or without? — sweetened with golden nuggets of grape sugar. Almost invariably, the tea comes to the table in simple ovoid teapots glazed in blue, gold, and white with the stylized image of the cotton boll, representing the major cash crop of the region.

We order our tea — зелёный с молоком, пожалуйста — and consider the journey we have undertaken, to this far side of the world, this most landlocked of places, this Andijon, in the cornucopious and fabled Fergana Valley of eastern Uzbekistan. Here, the foreigner is always watched and cannot rely on the crowd for anonymity. Eyes follow us everywhere, sometimes wary, sometimes curious or bemused, perhaps wondering why we have come, of all places, to this corner of the globe.

We slowly sip, and give our swollen feet a few minutes to shrink a bit from the confines of our road-weary boots, and we watch the baker as he supervises his young assistants, who are loading ball after ball of raw dough into a traditional pit oven, each one destined soon to become today’s fresh bread.

Shadow play / Juego de sombras

“I’m sitting in the courtyard, looking forward to my friend, to congratulate him on the birth of his newborn son. Old house, dark courtyard, a couch on the yard. My friend appears in the opening of the gate, with a cradle in the hand. The cradle is covered with burgundy velvet, embroidered with gold. I set the light, press the camera button. At this moment, a Chinese tourist runs away on the street in front of the open gate. The photo will be complete with him. In photography it is important not to seek for a topic, but to be able to see it. At least this is how I think. I do not like invented photos. I do not like when local photographers base the photo on ethnography, when they seek to include at least one minaret, a donkey, a camel, a female in folk costume and with a child on her arm, and the rest.” Anzor Bukharsky, from Samarkand.

«Estoy sentado en el patio, esperando a mi amigo para felicitarle por su hijo recién nacido. La casa antigua, el patio oscuro, un sofá en el patio. Mi amigo aparece en el vano de la puerta, con una cuna en la mano. La cuna está cubierta de terciopelo granate, bordado en oro. Ajusto la luz, presiono el botón de la cámara. En este momento, un turista chino pasa corriendo por la calle ante la puerta abierta. La foto se completa con él. En fotografía es importante no buscar el tema, sino ser capaz de verlo. Por lo menos así lo pienso yo. No me gustan las fotos inventadas. No me gusta cuando los fotógrafos locales basan sus fotos en la etnografía, cuando tratan de incluir al menos un minarete, un burro, un camello, una mujer en traje típico y con un niño en brazos, y todo eso.» Anzor Bukharsky desde Samarkanda.

Tashkent, 1956

From the 1956’s Moscow Jacques Dupâquier flew on to Tashkent, the center of the Uzbek autonomous republic. It appears that there he enjoyed the same freedom in sightseeing and taking photos as in the capital.

“We traveled on an old plane which did not rise higher than 3,200 meters, and so we could watch for hours Soviet Central Asia. I made a couple of pictures through the window. At one moment we flew over a forced labor camp. The stewardess came out of the cabin, and warned that photography is prohibited there. Then she went back to the cabin, so I urgently took some photos. The official interpreter sitting next to us said nothing."

These images show the shrinking outlines of the Aral Sea, the last remnants of old Tashkent and the traditional costume of their residents, the bazaar which shrank just like the sea and where Dupâquier took most photos. His pictures do not surpass the average tourist standard either here. But their value is in the fact that all this would disappear within ten years, following the rebuilding of the city into a sea of socialist housing estates and – as Dupâquier already noticed and emphasized it – the strong influx of Russian inhabitants and culture accompanying it.

“They sat into an open cab. Meanwhile, their amiable guide at every moment forced them to look out from under the parasol, by showing the completed or half-finished buildings and the lots where soon they will build others. Koreyko looked angrily on Bender. Ostap turned away and cried out:
– What a wonderful Asian bazaar! Just like in Baghdad!
– On the seventeenth we will start to sweep it off – their guide said. – A hospital and the Cooperative Center will be built on its place.
– And do you not regret to disrupt this attractive and exotic picture? This is a veritable Baghdad!
– Extremely picturesque… – Koreyko sighed.
The young man got angry.
– For you, strangers, it might seem picturesque, but we have to live here!
– And how are we here… with that kind of… Asian-style little pubs? You know, where they play lute and flute? – the great combinator asked impatiently.
– We have burned them out – the young man replied nonchalantly. – It should have been eradicated long ago, this leprosy, these centers of infection. We have just liquidated the last nest of vice, the Moonlight Inn.”

(Ilf-Petrov: The Golden Calf, 1931)