The top of the Amirsoy Ski Resort, Chimgan, Uzbekistan
One of our main aims, when we visited Uzbekistan in Dec 2023, was to see snow and, ski! (If the kids wanted to). It’s the easiest (and cheapest, ahem) country to get to at that time, because they allowed UAE residents to enter visa-free!! And nobody (OK, almost nobody), visits Central Asia in friggin winter (it’s frigid! Parts of it was -21C when we were there) So, before the situation changed, I bought the tickets and voila! We were there! The catch is, that while Uzbekistan is pretty big, the mountains are all tucked up in one small corner of the country. The rest of the country is pretty much flat, with large areas of it, a desert… Luckily, the corner where the mountains are, aren’t too far away from its capital, Tashkent. Here’s our story in pictures!
Yippee, we’re on the way! On the road towards the mountains from Tashkent (this was one trip which we decided not to drive. Heck, the attractions are mostly in the cities, and they’re far apart, much easier to travel by train! For Chimgan, we took a cab from Tashkent)
Welcome to Chimgan!
Around our hotel… It’s called …something Apachi something something… (it’s in Russian Cyrillic, OK?!) This is when Google Translate, or Yandex Translate, can come in really useful!
Looking fresh… on the day we arrived (before all the falls I’d have. Darn! Look out when it’s sunny and nice, after a snowy day. The snow will melt and refreeze to become friggin ice!)
We tried to get to the Charvak Lake, but ended up in Chinorkent instead (that’ll happen, if you don’t know Russian or Uzbek). But we have no regrets. It's not bad at all, just look at the views! (Yup, Charvak Lake is visible from up there!)
There’s even Santa Claus and his missus! (I didn’t know Santa Claus had a wife?!?) I searched it up, my bad, it’s not actually Santa Claus, it’s Ded Moroz (Father Frost), the Slavic equivalent of Santa Claus, and the girl is Snegurochka (Snow Maiden), his granddaughter, not his wife! And interestingly, the Uzbeks, although they are 95% Muslim, celebrate the Christmas season, complete with Christmas trees, music, dancing, Ded Moroz, and what have you, as a non-religious winter festival! A nice legacy from its past Soviet communist rule, I'd say. I think this should be how society is, celebrating each other’s festivals, and respecting each other’s cultures and beliefs. Imagine how Afghanistan would have been, had the world let the Soviets take it over in the 70-s.
We’re in Amirsoy! Care for some skating?? Nope… Justin can't wait to ski!
And he’s a natural. Successful on his first try, ever! (This was our first ever skiing!) And on his second try, he could already bring himself to a stop at the bottom! (And me? Don’t talk about it. I fell, and rolled, and fell myself all the way down the beginner’s slope, twice!)
And that was what Jayden and mommy were doing, while we were skiing (or falling, in the case of yours truly…)
The Amirsoy Ski Resort, Chimgan, Uzbekistan, Dec 2023
OK, time to get back to the city… On the way, you’ll pass thru this strange resort, which features an aeroplane! It’s the Sevarsoy. I read that it’s a health resort…
That’s all for today.
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