IRGIN IEWS by IRGINIA

MAGELLAN WAS RIGHT- Part II

Having done Iran, Kuwait and Afganistan it was back to the Soviet Union. This time the entry was at Tashkent, capitol city of Usbek- istan. This was the capitol city of Tamarlane - properly Timur the Lame. He was a cripple and I guess it was just a case of overcompen- sation that led him to push so many people around. His grave is there with a big blue mosque like structure built over it. This was a very moslem city and several of the principle show places in town are the mosques and the religious schools. They are enormous buildings and all done in blue and green tile with minarets etc. Some of you may know that the Moslem religion does not permit representations of living things animals or human. Thus there are no pictures, no sculptures, drawings or any other sort of decoration that portrays anything. Instead inscriptions in arabic from the Koran are mounted in mosques and public buildings. To some this is an interesting dif- ference but I got pretty tired of mosques and other public buildings which are all tiled and pretty much alike.

We took in the Soviet version of the Farmers Market. It was a large area partly open and partly under sheds with buildings along one side. All over the place they were selling all kinds of fruit and vegetables. The "melon patch" was an area about 25 yards square piled high with every sort of melon and squash you have ever seen. Other stalls had potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, egg plants, carrots, onions and you name it. Although this is a socialist country and almost all the land is used in some sort of social way, each member of a collective farm gets a very small piece of ground on which he can grow extra food for himself and family. Also, the excess that he doesn't eat himself he can bring to the market place and sell. Thus bits and pieces of private enterprise still manage to survive in the land of Lenin.

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