I think most of the foreigners who had ever been there were touched by Uzbekistan, like me, and fascinated by it, by its contradictions, by its ancient charms, its kind, hospitable people, its somewhat tragic state of unfulfilled promises, optimism in the face of despair, its music, its desert emptinesses, silences.

And, there are so many pretty awful things there. Sure, there are the discomforts of living in an underdeveoped country -- intestinal stress, inescapable heat, bad food, bad phone lines, never toilet paper when you need it. But there are the much further, beneath the surface parts that the locals tend to hide behind the pleasant smiles, the lavish spreads that they put out for you when they receive you as a guest, that is, that their lives are so hard.

It’s hard there to make money honestly. And tomorrow, there could be a knock at the door and everything, the little that you have can be seized.

I’d have taxi drivers with PhD's or who were once working as surgeons or university professors. People had seen better times.

And the country was run by a cruel and corrupt system. When I first got there, either it was my bad language skills or my lack of understanding or people not yet trusting me or perhaps it was the times, too early for people to give up on their optimism, but people didn’t speak so badly about the system.

Over time, I noticed that with the little or lack of improvement in the country, they were livid and they expressed it openly, sometimes furiously, which actually was a dangerous thing -- potentially leading to an arrest.

By the time I was leaving, there were protests, which was unheard of – small fringe groups, calling for the president’s resignation, an elderly pensioner, war veteran, after veterans benefits were cancelled, drove around the city with a sign “Karimov should resign” but he was stopped. And that was only the beginning of the series of protests and demonstrations -- some of which lead to tragic consequences.  ¶ 9:46 PM