Do taxi’s actually exist out here?

Tashkent. When I started to arrange this project, a few months ago, I even couldn’t point the country of Uzbekistan on a map of the world, no way I knew its capitol by heart. Arriving here in the middle of the night (3 am.), to me had something strange, unpredictable and adventurous. What are the people like, how will they react to a meeting with a redhead from Holland? What will the temperature be, and what about smell of Tashkent’s inner city? Will my visa be accepted? Do they speak English? What about taxi’s to bring my ass to my hotel, do taxis actually exist out here in the savannah? Regardless my expectations; a VIP treatment was present to escort me through the border cross procedures, to my hotel, trough the check in, of Hotel Intercontinental, and finally it provided me with fresh fruit and drinks, brought by the room service as a present: and why not!

The purpose of my visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan was the International conference on
development of road transport haulage between Europe and Asia. On this conference,
governmental leaders, captains of industry and research institutions like NEA, would introduce the departure of the first full truck load caravan from Tashkent to several destinations in Europe, varying from Istanbul (Turkey) to Riga (Latvia). NEA’s contribution to this project would be the execution of a comprehensive monitoring study on the caravans, based on information truck drivers provide trough a logbook, filled in during the trip. I had the honour to present my vision towards Eurasian road transport and NEA’s research approach during the project lifetime.



After a few days I recognized a typical habit of the Uzbek people or maybe the Soviet population in general: drinking lots of vodka. During the conference, extensive diners and lunches were provided and during these, the vodka glass was constantly refilled by a friendly waiter, who does not seem to understand the expression ‘I’m satisfied, thank you’. The fact that Uzbek’s main passion is speech-ing and as a fact, a speech is always assisted with a toast, the results was a total of eight ad fundum vodka shots during a one and a half hour business lunch.

After a full day of listening to Uzbek spoken presentations, finally the moment was there to start the engines and depart from Tashkent to several destinations in the far west. In total, about fifteen trucks from six carriers participated in this project named NELTI, New Eurasian Land Transport Initiative. The departure formed the culminating closure of the conference where trade across the Eurasian continent has been taken to another dimension!