The Uzbek currency is called the Som. Our first day here we exchanged $50US for 138,000 Som. We felt rich! The largest bill is 1,000 so the pile of bills is about 3" tall. When we leave the hotel room rather than count how much local currency to take with us, we just decide whether to take 1/4 or 1/2 inch of it! |

For several years after independence (from the Soviet Union in 1991) the Uzbek economy shrank, and then hyperinflation took over. Today the economy is growing and inflation has moderated to about 10%. Parts of the economy are tightly controlled - the government tells farmers what crops to grow so they can control quantities for local and export use. All land belongs to the government. Farmers must apply to farm sections of land and if they are not successful the land is given to another to cultivate. They sell their “prescribed allotment” to the government but any leftover crops can be sold on the open market. |
People own their homes but not the land they are built on. That makes it easy to re-locate people if central planning decides to build a road, monument or factory in a neighborhood where people are living. They simply provide the residents with another piece of land and pay them a sum of money to build a new home. We talked with a woman yesterday whose home was being relocated. She explained she’d initially been offered $20,000US, but was still in negotiations. The current offer for her home is $50,000. You can build a fine home here for $50,000, but it’s not in your old neighborhood... |