The Tashkent Metro System

Ugggghh... how is it September already?! And single digit temperatures? Frick. With no international travel upcoming in the forseeable future, here's a look back at our last trip (a year ago!) in which we spent a day in Tashkent, Uzbekistan touring their underground Metro stations. I wouldn't fault you for thinking that USSR era Metro stops would be about as interesting as a North Korean paperclip factory, but hear me out. Built during the 1970's, these stations were suprisingly ornate and extravagant, some even bordering on outlandish, compared to the typical austere architectural style of Soviet realism. A token to ride the Metro cost 1400 Uzbek Som, or the equivalent of $0.18 Cdn. And because there was no time limit to your usage of the system so long as you did not exit a station, we spent less than $1.00 Cdn that day to see numerous architectural curiousities that more resembled museum lobbies than Metro platforms. I hope these photos do something to sate your wanderlust.

Not actually taken inside a metro station... these next couple pics were just interesting interior domes inside a mosque we saw on this same day.






Now back to the Metro stations.












As I've already mentioned, 1400 Som was the equivalent of 18 cents Cdn. So this is what walking around with a couple hundred bucks (Cdn equivalent) in a largely cash transaction based society looked like.