Escape from Uzbekistan Part II

I made it! After sending me away in the morning with the instructions to return at 5pm, then asking me to wait indefinitely while the consul returned from some errands, I finally received a quaint hand-written visa at around 7:30 last night. I had more than enough time to enjoy one last evening in Tashkent, before catching a few winks and heading to the splendidly chaotic Tashkent airport for a 6am flight.

I had a business class ticket (coach was sold out), and so was eligible to bypass the mob crowding the entrance to the airport building, jostling to get their bag scanned and tickets checked before boarding their flights to Moscow, Istanbul, Riva, and beyond. Of course, I didn't know that the $50 extra I paid for business class came with these benefits, so I matched the old ladies elbow for elbow only to be turned away at the check-in desk, and redirected to a different entrance. At the business class check in lobby and private passport control and lounge, I found myself in the company of some serious looking gentlemen and their families, the sort of people who walked up to the refreshment table and seize a whole tray of pastries to bring back to their reclining travelling parties. After being locked in the departure lounge until 10 minutes past the departure time (a guard scowled and grunted his disapproval at me when I tried to leave early), a bedraggled agent walked through the lounge announcing "Alma-Ata! Alma-Ata" (the original Soviet name for Almaty, disused for 15 years now). She led about a dozen of us out through the locked door, past the hoi palloi, and down into a private bus that sped us to the foot of our waiting RJ85.

The most amusing part of this business class experience was that it wasn't business class at all: that is, there was no business class on the plane -- we just took an assortment of empty seats from among the "coach" passengers, who had already boarded and were apparently waiting for us. All the same, I enjoyed my oligarchical experience, well worth the $50 just for the story.

Though Tashkent is only about 70 minutes flying from Almaty, the airports are worlds apart. Tashkent's terminal, unchanged since Soviet days, is characterized by peeling paint and shouting passengers. It actually has a good deal of international flights, but passengers reach their waiting Sukhoy, Yak, and (sometimes) Boeing aircraft by way of buses. There were only 4 proper gates. This gives them a low rating on the Maritz Development Index (the ratio flights at a country's national airport which are boarded by jet ways).

Almaty, however, is graced by a brand new, albeit smallish airport. Instead of the rows upon rows of Sukhoys I left in Uzbekistan, I landed to find myself in the midst of a nice collection of private jets, G5's and some others. The terminal is sparkling, the passport control nicely computerized, and (the biggest surprise) the bathrooms were clean. Heady times in Kazakhstan!