Uzbekcha gapirsizmi?

My favorite interactions in Uzbekistan are with taxi drivers. Since most people are curious about similar things, the conversations haven’t materially changed since I arrived. However, my understanding of Uzbekistan has deepened over the past two years, and these chats have been instrumental in demonstrating that I have learned, grown, and adapted. 

I studied Uzbek before coming to live here, so I might know more than the average Joe, but I still lack a lot of the facility in conversations that Uzbeks have. I have yet to meet anyone here who does not have at least a functional knowledge of two languages; being fluent in three or more is common. These languages include Uzbek, Russian, Tajik, English, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tatar, etc. People here shift between, around, and through languages seamlessly. 

Despite my language deficiencies, I am a chronic yapper aiming at luring them into a conversation. There’s an art to this. The first hurdle is cultural and linguistic, stemming from the aforementioned language diversity in the country. The second hurdle is universal: not every driver is chatty, and as many passengers are not interested in gab, there’s also an implied request for silence. 

To start, the most common taxi app in Uzbekistan is Yandex, a Russian company. Yandex in Uzbekistan comes in two flavors, Uzbek and Russian, but that duality only scratches the surface. 

If the Yandex app gives directions in Uzbek, you know the driver speaks at least Uzbek. If the app is in Russian, that means the driver at least speaks Russian. In Samarkand last year, Yandex in Russian meant that the driver might prefer any language, but often, their preference was Tajik. In Tashkent, this could mean that the preferred language might be Russian, sure, but it might also be Uzbek, Tajik, Karakalpak, Azerbaijani, or something else. 

Riding in cars with boys.

So, what’s my process after almost two years of practice?

It starts when I first open the door. I always begin with the common Uzbek greeting borrowed from Arabic of assalamu alaykum. This garners a few responses, in Uzbek, Russian, or a mix of both. 

In Uzbek, I get assalamu alaykum back to me if they are about my age, or va alaykum assalam if they are demonstrably older than me. This does not necessarily mean that the driver speaks Uzbek, as this is a common greeting in the region across languages. However, if the driver follows their hello up with yaxshimisiz? “How are you?”, this is a good indicator that we’re going to gab. 

(This is a slight variation in Uzbekistan on the traditional Arabic greetings. In the Middle East, the initial “hello” is assalamu alaykum, and the response is always wa alaykum assalam. Here, the younger person or perhaps a subordinate should always say hello first, and if the respondent is close in age or status, they will say assalamu alaykum back. If there is a significant age gap or power distance, the second person will say va alaykum assalam.)

Half the time or more, drivers just go straight for Russian. People who don’t look stereotypically “Central Asian” are supposed to be Russian speakers. This is so ingrained that often people cannot understand that I am speaking Uzbek. I think that drivers assume they are helping me by switching languages away from my assalamu alaykum. So, the driver will hit me up with Здравствуйте, zdrávstvujte, in response. Just like with Uzbek, sometimes they will follow “hello” up with Как дела?, Kak dela?, “How are you?” 

Okay, where from here? 

Sometimes it’s just a silent ride, and that’s perfectly fine. If this is the case, I still try to determine the driver’s preferred language. One sign is which language the radio or YouTube is set to. Another way is to eavesdrop on their phone calls. The third is less reliable, but it seems that people who prefer Russian are less religious or openly religious. So, a religious item hanging from the rearview mirror might be a clue. 

But if the driver seems inclined to chat, I am always game to try, regardless of language. If they start in Uzbek, I am good to go (though there are regional dialects I am less familiar with). If they start in Russian, I tell them, “I’m sorry, I don’t know Russian.” Извините, я не знаю русский, Izvinite, ya ne znayu russkiy. This might not even be correct in Russian, but that might help prove my point. As most people have some ability in Uzbek, they often switch. If they are less proficient in Uzbek, they still often understand, and I understand enough Russian, that we can muddle through a few basic questions.

If the ride is quiet but I want to try talking with the driver, I might comment on the traffic (hozir juda band, it’s very busy now) or the weather (bugun issiq, it’s hot today). Sometimes this works, sometimes the driver puts on the radio. You can’t win them all. 

AIl-in-all, I have about a 60-70% success rate for starting a conversation. The standard questions are often about where I am from, how I learned Uzbek, what I do for work, what my salary is, and how they can get a visa to the U.S. But sometimes, they are a little more fun. 

Here is a highlight reel of some of my favorite taxi conversations from this year.

I attended a coworker’s wedding, and I caught a taxi back home at night. As I opened the door and said assalamu alaykum, the driver didn’t look up, and he just greeted me back. We exchanged pleasantries and then fell silent. A few minutes in, I got a voice message from a friend and decided to reply. After I finished sending my message, the man said, “Inglizcha bilasizmi?” Do you know English? He was impressed by my fluency. 

I chuckled a little, “Albatta. Inglizcha bilaman chunki Amerikadanman.” Of course. I speak English because I’m an American. The man whipped his head around so fast that I was afraid he was going to break his neck. I was also concerned that he no longer seemed cognizant of the road.

“O’zbekistonlik emassizmi?!” You’re not Uzbek?!, he asked incredulously, but soon as we passed under a streetlight and he confirmed it for himself. Language in Uzbekistan is obviously fluid, and he slipped into a common Russian phrase, “Без акцента”, no accent. I tell him this is paxta, flattery. He insists, “Paxta yo’q!” Not paxta!

We chatted the rest of the way to my apartment, and he kept interjecting, “No accent!” People have told me that my Uzbek is pretty good, but this ride in the dark was the first time I started to believe they aren’t just being kind. 

We’re mutuals on Instagram now. 

Last week, I hopped into a taxi driven by a young man. I said hello, and he responded in Russian. I didn’t pursue a conversation after that because he was listening to music in Russian, and I couldn’t see or hear the language of Yandex from the back seat. Traffic was horrific, and it was going to be a 45-minute ride. I settled into the idea that I’d just chill. It was hot anyway, and I enjoying the breeze wafting through the open passenger window.

About 15 minutes in, he got a call and talked in Uzbek! After he finished talking, he didn’t immediately turn up the music. I decided to try, “Ugh, kechirasiz! Bugun band!” Ugh, sorry! It’s busy today!

He looked a little shocked, and then smiled. I sensed a fellow yapper. “Hech qisi yo’q. Bu vaqtda har doim band.” It’s nothing! It’s always busy at this time. 

We talked about where he’s from, and it’s my favorite region in the country, Qashqadaryo. We agreed that Tashkent is okay, but it can’t compare with the food, the nature, and the slow life of the countryside. 

We talked about one of the national sports of Uzbekistan, ko’pkari, horse polo. Ko’pkari, or buzkashi as it is known in neigh-boring countries (pun intended), is played with a calf or goat carcass weighing between 66-88 pounds. Riders lean off their horses, pick the carcass off the ground with one hand, and then break away from the horde of sometimes hundreds of horses and riders to win the prize. The prize could be anything from a TV to a live goat. I told him there’s a woman Buzkashi rider in Tajikistan. He was impressed and showed me his bicep, “She must be so strong,” he said. Baquvvat. We love a supporter. 

He’s a second-year student at a university in town, and he was excited for the end of the semester so he could go home. He doesn’t like school, but he likes his classmates. I asked if he liked his teachers. He shifted uncomfortably like I might know them. I smiled, “Ellik-ellik, eh?” Fifty-fifty? He laughed with me. 

The interaction was pleasant and slow. He knew my Uzbek is only okay, and he paced himself to my ability level. I hopped out at my stop and told him, “Tanishganimdan xursandman.” It’s nice to meet you. This is for when you first meet someone, but I don’t know how to say, “Thank you for the talk.” It works; people know what I mean. Then, “Salomat bo’ling.” Goodbye, but really, be healthy, stay well.

In January, I traveled to Khiva with a few friends. Rather than waiting for a Yandex at the train station, we just caught a taxi in the street. The man packed us and all of our gear into his white Chevy sedan, the unofficial car of the country, and bundled us off to our homestay. 

When we arrived, he insisted we take his phone number in case we wanted a tour of the Ellikqala district (more on that in a separate post). One of the gang needed to stay behind with her son, but EC and I took him up on his offer the next day. 

The man picked us up at 9:00 am, and we prepared to spend the next five to six hours with him as our driver and guide. Plot twist, he didn’t know English. He was fluent in Uzbek, the local dialect–Khorezmi, Karakalpak, Kazakh, and Russian. This meant I was on duty as translator between EC and the man. EC just kept hearing the word qala, and made that our chant for the ride, “Qala, qala”. Qala means fortress, and we were about to see three of the fifty of them, Ellikqala. 

My Uzbek is not up to the task of translating much and definitely not for hours on end; I translated mostly based on vibes and my intense, pre-existing love of history. Also, I translate more easily from Uzbek to English than from English to Uzbek. 

I managed to translate for EC that some of the fortresses were built in the third century BCE,  and that this region flourished because of the relationship between the king there and Alexander the Great. After each nugget he told me, he waited for me to tell EC, and then he would continue.  

At one point, EC had a question, and my translation was rough. “O’zbekistanda, sizinchi, Afg'oniston yaxshi yoki yaxshi emasmi?” In Uzbekistan, in your opinion, is Afghanistan good or bad?” To clarify, I tried to explain the relationship between the US and Afghanistan. I tried to be diplomatic, “Amerikada, Afg'oniston bilan tarix bor. Menimcha, Afg’onistonliklar yomon emas.” In America, with Afghanistan, there is history. In my opinion, Afghans are not bad. 

He was very philosophical. He told me, “There are good and bad people in Afghanistan. Just like in Uzbekistan. And in America.” He’s right, of course. 

We drove through the main city of the district, Bo’ston. He joked, “Bo’ston, not Boston.” He told me the tourists always say it’s like America. He told me the pronunciation is different, but he likes the joke. 

After a tour of the first qala, we had to backtrack toward Bo’ston. He saw a woman hitchhiking and asked if we could pick her up because there are not a lot of cars and he was worried about her. Of course we don’t mind. He told her, “Bu Amerikalik o’zbekcha gapiradi!” This American speaks Uzbek! We exchanged a few greetings. After he dropped her off, she tried to pay him, but he refused. Somehow, he managed to convey to me that were are already paying him, and it would be unethical to get paid twice to go in the same direction. I liked his morals. 

By the end of the trip, he tried to tell me about a lake. I have no lake vocabulary, and we were both getting a little frustrated. He wanted me to understand what he was saying, but at some point, I just wanted him to let it go. We broke down and used Google Translate. I was informed that you can eat shashlik (barbecue skewers) on a boat in the lake. He said we should come back for that. 

This man exhibited the patience of a saint in that ride, but my brain was on fire, and I no longer knew English. I feigned sleep for the last hour and left EC to fend for herself. 

Sometimes, my taxi rides involve the driver asking to call someone to talk to me or to make a recording. It’s about a fifty-fifty ratio if they want me to speak in English or Uzbek. If it’s English, they often know a child who is learning. If it’s Uzbek, they normally want a family member to see an American who speaks the language. A few weeks ago, after a birthday party at a Georgian restaurant that included several shots of chacha, the taxi driver wanted me to talk to people in Uzbek. So I sent a recording with him. We exchanged a few sentences, and he was content. 

The address we had entered was wrong, so I asked him to turn off Yandex, and I would just pay him cash to take us to the correct location. He agreed. At this point, I asked him if I could take over YouTube. My favorite Uzbek singer is a man named Xamdam Sobirov, and the driver and I had a karaoke session singing “Malohat”.

I will forever be grateful for my time in Uzbekistan, but maybe just a little more so for the conversations I have had with the men who have driven me across town, between cities, and sometimes, just a little slower so we could keep talking.