How 8 Gringos Gave a Speech at an Uzbek Wedding Where No One Spoke English

In June 2024, I had the chance to travel to Uzbekistan for 10 days, visit the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara, and most importantly, extensively interact with my friend Amir’s family Although living in Uzbekistan and fluent in Uzbek, they consider themselves (ethnically) Tajik, as it is their first language and their ethnicity of origin. As such, they clearly differentiate themselves from Uzbek peope. and attend the wedding of his cousin - Dilshod Aka. This trip was nothing short of extraordinary, and I try here to give an overview of why. I attempted in this blogpost to synthetize the most interesting stories and observations about my stay in Uzbekistan - a country with rich historical relevance, strong culture and traditions, and most importantly, a country still very preserved from the cultural dilution caused by globalization and mass tourism.

Before jumping in, I’d like to extend my sincerest gratitude to Amir for organizing this trip, introducing us to his loving family, and translating the many idiosyncrasies of the Uzbek Ethnically Tajik, not Uzbek. society. I’d also like to thank Dilshod Aka for having us at his wedding, taking care of us throughout the entire trip, and always entertaining us with jokes and good spirit - I wish him and his Kelin Refers to newly-wed woman. More info on this in the "Random stories and fun facts" section of the blogpost. all the best for the life they are starting together.

Prelude - an Ode to Friendship, Hospitality and Internationalization

The story of my presence in Uzbekistan can be traced back to 2007, when Amir (11 years old at the time) and his family unexpectedly won the green card lottery and left their traditional Uzbek life in Samarkand to move to the U.S.A. In another part of the world, Ayush (around the same age as Amir), born in India, relocates with his family to the U.S.A due to his father’s work. Amir and Ayush attended the same high school in New Jersey. The great friendship that brought me to Uzbekistan started when Amir spotted the only “culturally brown” directly quoting Amir kid at school, and with the hope of showing off his Bollywood knowledge, approached Ayush with a shy “Hey, what’s up?”.

Fast forward to 2023, where Ayush and I, both living in Zurich and studying at ETH, end up joining the same music band, and start hanging out - the beginning of another great friendship.

Amir’s cousin, Dilshod Aka, has finally found finding her was a long and tedious process the one and set a date to get married in June, and Amir decided to pause his accountant life in New York City and attend the wedding. Eager to share the beauty of his country with his friends, he kindly asks whether a few extra seats can be left for his friends at the wedding. Dilshod Aka and his family, being the incredibly hospitable and loving people that they are, happily agree. Amir invites his closest friends, Jordan, Jake and Ayush. Funnily enough, Ayush (having already visited Uzbekistan with Amir) gives himself green card to invite his own Zurich Friends to the wedding - the more the merrier he says. And this is how I got invited to Dilshod Aka’s wedding, while having met Amir only once before, and never knowing the existence of the groom Dilshod Aka.

In the end, we were a very international group of 8 foreigners (as Latin Americans say, a group of 8 gringos) present at the wedding: two Americans, one Dutch, one German, one Moroccan (me), one Indian, one Chinese-American and one Swiss. And of course, we were with our Uzbek-American host Amir during the entire trip, who took us around and translated the many conversations we had with his family members and with different locals we met throughout our journey.

Now that the context of my presence at this wedding has been presented, let’s dig into what this trip was like!

Context and history

Some of the stories and observations I will discuss are best understood with some historical context in mind. However, if you know the situation of the country, or if you don’t really care about history, feel free to skip this part and move on to the next section.

Between Persia, the Mongols and USSR

Uzbekistan, situated in Central Asia, has historically been at the crossroads of multiple significant and diverse cultural, political, and religious movements, mainly due to its position along the Silk Road. The Persians established a presence in the region, substantially establishing growth and prosperity through trade. This era saw the area become an important centre during the Islamic Golden Age, with prominent intellectuals hanging out in Bukhara or Samarkand, such as Ibn Sina or Omar El Khayyam.

The Persian influence was ended by the Mongol invasion led by Genghis Khan. A few generations later, Timur, descendant of the Mongol elite, established Samarkand as the capital of the vast Timurid Empire. Other great leaders, from the same lineage, came after Timur, notably the astronomer Ulugh Bek, who carried on the heritage of Samarkand as a renowned center of scientific study.

Later, Babur, a descendant of both Timur and Genghis Khan, shifted his focus eastward, conquering parts of India and founding the Mughal Empire. While Uzbekistan was not directly part of the Mughal Empire, it remained culturally connected to this powerful dynasty.

From the 19th century onward, Uzbekistan, along with much of Central Asia, was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire. Tashkent, the current capital, became the political center of Russian Turkestan. This Russian influence continued until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, after which Uzbekistan declared its independence.

This simplified historical context exemplifies the wide range of cultural influences that have shaped Uzbekistan throughout its history. Persian culture dominated for several centuries. The Mongol invasion led to a golden age of knowledge and science. Islam was a constant presence, both through Persian influence and during Timurid empire reign. The Mughal Empire, founded by Babur (who was born in present-day Uzbekistan), extended its influence to India. Finally, Russian and Soviet rule left their mark on the country. All of these diverse influences remain perceptible within modern day Uzbekistan.

Languages

The influence of all these cultures is directly sensed through the diversity of languages that are spoken in Uzbekistan, and the different influences these languages have.

The current official state language is Uzbek, which is a Turkic language, and written primarily in Latin alphabet since 1993. Indeed, after the fall of the Soviet union, Uzbekistan wanted to get rid of as much Russian influence as possible - so they enforced Latin alphabet as opposed to Cyrillic to write Uzbek - which had been in place since the 1920s. Educational establishments today only teach the Latin notation, even though the Cyrillic notation is all over the place, especially amongst older generations. Fun story: a Tunisian/Turkish friend whom we met in Bukhara spoke an entire conversation in a restaurant with an Uzbek lady - my friend spoke Turkish while the waiter answered in Uzbek, and they understood each other.

Tajik is another commonly spoken language in Uzbekistan, particularly in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand (where we were) because of the population of ethnic Tajiks, which is dominant in these two cities (close to modern-day Tajikistan border). The Tajik language is a dialect of Persian. While Persian is written in Persian characters (very similar to Arabic alphabet), Tajik is almost exclusively written in Cyrillic. It is not taught in schools - and is left as a spoken language between Tajik people of the region.

Samarkand and Bukhara are mostly inhabited by ethnically Tajik people because of their significances during the various Persian dynasties (notably Timurid, Khwarazmian and Samanid). Interestingly, Tajikistan has a high population of ethnically Uzbek or Uzbek speaking people than Uzbekistan has Tajiks. In the 1900s, Soviets purposely drew borders this way to prevent countries from becoming ethnically homogeneous, and reducing the chances of possible revolution/uprising.

Russian is a bit like the English of the region - the common denominator for all surrounding countries. This is the language people do business with, both within Uzbekistan and across the region. The current relations between Uzbekistan and the Russian language are obviously difficult - seen by some as a language they don’t want to have anything to do with anymore, and by others as a prominent language of Uzbek history, widely spoken and useful in the region. It is today not recognized as an official language, but some people are pushing for it to be recognized as such.

End of dictatorship, opening up to the world and tourism

In 2016, Uzbekistan’s first (authoritarian) president Islam Karimov passed - and that was the beginning of a (positive?) set of changes in the country. The new president Mirziyoyev started a gradual liberalization process, opening up the political system (although it still is far from being a democracy per se). Regional relations were drastically improved, particularly with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Media have significantly more freedom, and a subsequent freedom of what people consume over the internet - you can imagine the influence of the internet in this country. Foreign investments became more attractive, with privatization efforts from originally state-owned companies. Bref, a large set of measures of the sort that basically started putting Uzbekistan on the international map, as a safe, flourishing, open, and good country to deal with. That’s what brought me there - despite us being 300 km away from the Afghan border where things are currently much less joyful.

What I’d like you to remember from this is that Uzbekistan has essentially opened up less than 10 years ago. This process of opening up takes a lot of time, but is typically accelerated with the increase of tourism and now available access to internet. We are still in the early days of Open-Uzbekistan; early days where incredibly few people speak English, and people still live very strong and non-diluted cultural norms. If you are lucky enough to travel to Uzbekistan and interact with the local people, you’ll be interacting with people that might have almost never seen people from a different part of the world, let aside spoken to them. And that’s an incredible way to experience a new culture - raw, pure and untouched - and that’s what it felt like for us, and what made it so fascinating to me.

Disjoint observations

Lost (and found) in translation

The entire trip was a game of translation - cultural and linguistic - where Amir had to translate both the conversations we were having with locals and his family, as well as the background behind some of the things we’d observe and ask him about. Thankfully, not everything had to be translated - particularly to Ayush (Indian) and myself (Moroccan). Ayush, fluent in Hindi, and I, fluent in Arabic could understand multiple words of Tajik; even more importantly, we could understand and relate to many cultural norms that we observed within their society. Regarding the similarities between Tajik and Arabic, this is not very surprising given that Tajik is essentially a Persian dialect, and Persian and Arabic do share a lot of words, but I had not realized this before arriving there - so I took note and was amazed by the similarities between my language and a language I had never heard about before. Here is a list of these words, most often pronounced slightly differently, and funnily enough, written in Cyrillic…

Relation to Islam

This was perhaps the biggest surprise for me - as I come from a Muslim country and was raised Muslim myself.

Uzbek people mostly identify as Muslim, but are rarely seriously practicing religion. They rarely pray, read or learn the scripture, or fast during Ramadan. I even heard that it was often more common for people to go to church rather than mosques. However, people now speak about Islam all the time, and have it tightly embedded in their traditions - and so despite it officially being a secular state. Prayers were told during wedding, and every single (male) person whom I told I was Moroccan to hugged me when they realized I too was Muslim. This is also visible in the architecture, as mosques are order of magnitudes better built, designed and cared for than virtually every other construction in the country.

Their relation to Islam feels very different than the one we have in Arab countries. I for instance find incredibly curious that no one speaks a word of Arabic, yet they (some of them) can recite a few verses of the Quran (just the basics though). This is something I have trouble comprehending - believing in a book which language they use everyday without understanding. While they are not the only country in this case (e.g. Indonesia), it was my first time being exposed to this - and I found it rather intriguing.

Another interesting point is how common it is to drink alcohol for Uzbek people - certainly, this must have remained from the Soviet influence, but it seems to be totally normalized and not hidden - which is completely different from Arab countries where Alcohol is taboo and hidden (not consumed in public).

One must note however that Islam, although historically present since the early days of Islam, has seen a very important rise in the recent years, with many Uzbek people becoming increasingly radical and serious in their practice, especially in younger generations - which many Uzbek people do not particularly appreciate. Perhaps the best testimony of this is a story we heard from Amir’s aunt, Khola who is a primary school teacher in Samarkand. She shared with us that the school refused to accept little girls wearing the headscarf, and that they’d always demand the girls take them off. Often, the girls would not accept to take their headscarf away, and the school would put the names of the girls on a “watch list” the exact phrasing for this got lost in translation. This would be impossible to do in Morocco for example, where little girls wearing headscarf is totally normal and accepted. Khola certainly agreed with the measure from the school, and expressed clear reluctance to this new wave of “Islamization”, even criticizing some of her own family members who, as she says, become overly religious in the last few years. She said: “Uzbekistan doesn’t have a tradition of extreme Islam - it is not us - we are open minded and moderate in our practice.”.

Men and Women dynamics

This also was fascinating to me, because it felt so different from what I am used to experience.

I’ll always recall the great surprise I felt on our first evening in the new and modern (and gentrified) neighbourhood of “Silk Road Samarkand”, and seeing local women dressed in a very liberal way - with colourful dresses, long hair down, taking pictures of themselves, and a complete feeling of safety and confidence in their attitude. This is not necessarily the norm in most Arab countries - at least not so freely in public places.

In contrast, in this exact same place of great freedom for women, I observed that practically no table had men and women seating together in it. Single families (husband + wife + kids) would seat together, but as soon as more than one couple was dining, men and women had separate tables, and did not talk to one another. The kids, of course, would always be seated with the women, while men did men things at their table.

This was also very clear at the wedding, where amongst 20 tables, our table of foreigners was the only one where men and women were seating together - all other tables were either men only or women only. Naturally, when it came to dancing, men and women would never dance together either - two distinct groups formed and danced independently with one another. In fact, virtually the only Uzbek woman I made eye contact with at the wedding was the professional dancer they had hired who was the only person dancing with both men and women. Yes, I didn’t make eye contact with the bride either - but more on that later.

In general, the social norms behind male/female dynamics are rather strict in Uzbekistan. There is little culture of dating - mostly a culture of finding and committing to a life partnership. I later learned that this dating culture is becoming more popular in younger generations, especially in Tashkent. It's also more and more depicted in Uzbek cinema and TV shows, which somewhat impact the reality of people. . The alternative for men is looking for women “to have fun with” - whom men openly say that they would never marry. Uzbek women are protected within their family before they find a husband, often not allowed to travel and engage in some activities to protect their reputation and keep them suited for a good marriage. Women get married young, and once they do, engage very little with other men in social settings - especially outside of their direct family.

One thing that I also found fascinating was that it was perceived as very rude to ask too many questions about the wife of people we’d interact with, or see pictures of them. You would never see an Uzbek person with a picture of their wife as a background picture on their phone for instance. Of course (lol), you’re allowed to ask for a picture of the girl if the relationship is not serious, but as soon as marriage is on the table and the intentions are serious, don’t you dare asking for a picture of the wife, complimenting how she looks, or anything remotely similar to this.

It overall was fascinating to me that women dress so freely, often do not wear headscarf, yet are perceived and treated in a strict and conservative way - more so than most Arab/Muslim countries. And men take these traditions incredibly seriously when it comes to their wives! These traditions are however never forced by law (such as in Saudi Arabia or Iran for instanca), but they are engrained in the social normals for everyone - and people willingly follow them.

Social classes, and attitude towards money

It’s usually rather straightforward for me to see through social dynamics and “classes” - I did not manage to in Uzbekistan.

It felt like there wasn’t any strong social fracture between working, middle and high-earning classes - as if all of them peacefully lived together, in a not so different way. Being African (and having several Indian, European, North and South American friends), I know very well that countries, especially “developing countries”, often have notable high-earning classes that are clearly distinguished in their way of life from the rest of the population. I did not see anything resembling this in the two cities we have visited in Uzbekistan. Maybe I just didn’t see them? Maybe they are hidden? Maybe they all are in Tashkent? We actually were staying in one of the rich neighbourhoods of Samarkand, and it certainly didn’t feel as strongly disparate compared to other countries I know. Of course, some people have more money than others, but it never felt like it really mattered much.

I discussed this with Amir, and he agreed that it also felt to him like people lived rather homogeneously together, and that people who had more money were not at all living in lavish and ostentatious ways. He suggested that there might be more of this going on in the capital Tashkent - but that ostentation and strong social fracture from wealth was not a significant thing in Uzbekistan.

I also asked Amir a more specific question about marriage to try to get a queue of what was going on in terms of social expectations and ways people had of “climbing the social ladder”. Amir told us that socio economic status was not a major determining factor for marriage - women do not particularly seek wealth when choosing life partners. The ability of a man to provide decent life conditions is enough for him to be considered a suitable partner.

Now I am not sure why I observed this, nor whether it is accurate. It might be very different in Tashkent, the capital, which is closer culturally to Russia, and where all big companies and government officials reside. But hearing from Amir that wealth did not matter so much for marriage was definitely not something I expected. And what comforts me in my position about “class homogeneity” is that I never felt like people were hungry for money.

Attitude towards money

Tips are not really a thing in Uzbekistan. In fact, many people will almost get offended if you try to leave a tip. We had to ask one of our waiters who had given us stellar service whether he’d be okay to accept a tip. Although he accepted, he was initially reluctant and slightly embarrassed about it. Strange in a country where the living wage is so low?

The many touristy shops we went to - the kind of shops and sellers that usually take great pleasure in ripping off tourists - always gave us reasonable prices. Of course, they were to be negotiated, but we never managed to get them under 20% under the initial asking price. In Morocco, I know that they would, without shame, ask you for 3 times what the product is actually worth, and you’d negotiate for a long time with them, and that’d be completely normal. Uzbek shop-owners did not appreciate us negotiating for too long, and again, never accepted to go below ~20% of the original asking price (and we tried! Remember I am Moroccan and can negotiate…).

Perhaps the most shocking of all to me were taxi drivers. We’d always take uber-like taxis (to avoid getting scammed) where the price was calculated on the app, and we’d have to pay in cash at the end of the ride. Often, we’d have rides that would cost us something like 21000 UZS (~2 USD). If we gave 20.000 + 5.000 in bills, since they often did not have the change, they would always rather give us back the 5.000 and be paid less than they should rather than keep the 5.000 and get paid more than they should. This was unheard of to me, taxi drivers preferring to be paid slightly less than slightly more!

Both the “classes” dynamics and attitude towards money feel somewhat concordant. It feels like people live pious and decent lives, where what matters most is to be there for one’s family and children. Money is important of course, but it’s not the most important thing in life - values, respect and integrity are significantly above money.

Globalization and liberalization have a very bad history with “values, respect, integrity and greed”. Will Uzbekistan get corrupted through external influences, increase of tourism and globalization? They probably will, but I hope they won’t - because this was certainly one thing that made Uzbek people so great and different from what I was used to experience.

Hospitality

Indeed, respect, moderation and integrity are not the only goods traits of Uzbek people. They are also incredibly hospitable - and guests are above everything else. I could relate to a lot of this being from Morocco.

If you need a story of hospitality, you should just read again the context of my visit in Uzbekistan: me and 7 other people were invited to a wedding of someone we had never heard of before in our lives! Our presence was not just one or two extra plates, we had entire tables to ourselves during the receptions!

Dilshod Aka (the groom), and the entirety of Amir’s family were so kind with us during our entire stay and took us around Samarkand at multiple instances despite being busy with the wedding preparation. I even remember Dilshod Aka who invited all of us to lunch the day after his wedding…

Children

Children are most certainly sacred in Uzbekistan. They are brought everywhere with their family when the family goes out, and obviously are the central goal of Uzbek life. We have been asked on multiple instances whether we had children - with everyone wishing us as many children as possible, as quickly as possible - as if it was the most obvious of things that we would want to have children.

On that regard, I was indeed struck by the large number of kids I saw and interacted with. These interactions were always amazing and striking to me in many ways. I cannot remember seeing a single kid crying during the entire trip - and all of them were (if not asleep) always smiling and playing. Most importantly, I did not see a single kind doom scrolling TikTok or Youtube or some silly Ipad Video game. I am not sure if it’s because Uzbek people cannot afford tablets for their kids or if it’s not in the culture to give electronics to your kids, but whatever it is, kids were playing with one another and always were respectful of adults. I’ll forever cherish an interaction with a 3-4 year old little girl in the train to Bukhara, who was playing with a little balloon (and whatever she could find on her way) by going back and forth through the wagon. I’d play some form of hide and seek with her (where I’d somehow hide in my seat), and she laughed during the entire 10-15 minutes we played together. She was loud when laughing, but not a single passenger in the train complained - everyone was fine with it and smiled through the interaction. The mother was around, and made sure that the kid was not doing anything silly and not being too bothersome for the passengers, but she mostly let her be - and indeed she was.

I am not sure how they educate their kids there, but I have never seen such a high concentration of kids, as well educated and well behaved as the ones in Uzbekistan - and let me state this again - not a single kid on their iPad or their parents phone - even at the wedding ceremony!!!

Food Don't want this to be a food blog so I'll keep it short lol

The food was simple, but incredibly tasty and tasteful. The main advantage that Uzbekistan has is the quality of its ingredients, the greatness of its herbs - mainly dill, which they put virtually everywhere, and of course, the low price of food production. They also eat a lot of meat - like at every dish. None of us was vegetarian thankfully, so we all enjoyed it :). The bread was also quite good and fresh. You’d see it sold in the market amongst fresh products rather than in bakeries, which was not something I had seen before.

I’ll mainly remember how tasty the tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, beetroots, chickpeas and fruits were. Peaches, nectarines, watermelons, melons… All incredibly sweet and delicious!

Wedding day

I’ll try here to give an overview of how the wedding unfolded, and some interesting details about traditions and norms.

Chronological tale of the celebrations

Pre-Wedding Day - Men’s event

The first event we were invited to was a men only event, at 8 in the morning. It’s a breakfast, which starts with a series of prayers before people start eating. No loud music, no particular animation nor dancing - just the men on the groom’s side having breakfast and chatting men stuff.

I must say I was surprised by the amount of food that was served, on each of the ~8 tables that were ready for guests. I also was very surprised by the quantity of meat that was served, at 8 in the morning. Another thing that surprised me was that two entire tables were completely empty with food readily set on them - I assume they had prepared a seat for every single person they had invited, not accounting for no-shows. I feel like that it’s not customary to account for no shows at these celebrations - it seems fine to have way more food than needed, which, I imagine, showcases generous hosting attitude and wealth?

The breakfast ceremony was “closed” after one of the older and religious man present at the event gave a little speech with a little prayer. After he put the mic down, every single person stood up and left the room in the span 3 minutes. Waiters started cleaning up immediately after, turning lights down and packing chairs away. I was so surprised by this because we were still seating and eating, and just very confused by how abruptly everyone had left.

And that was it - the party was literally closed. And we all went back home.

Wedding Day Part 1, 11:00 - Picking up the groom

Wedding day started on Tuesday with all of the groom’s family arriving at the groom’s house around midday. Men and women separation started at that point - our female friends Aline and Zenne from that point joined the mother and (female) cousin of Amir, while we stayed with the men. We found Dilshod Aka in his bedroom, seating on his bed in a great suit and holding flowers in the middle of a photoshoot. This is one such traditions that really felt odd to me, but was interesting to see. There is some sacrality over that bedroom, as it is the “marital bedroom”, where the bride and the groom move into on wedding night. Indeed, it is most common in Uzbekistan for the bride to move in with the family of the groom, where (if they can afford it), the newly wed couple will have their own little part of the house. Houses are also built as such, with several different “subhouses” rather than one big house where all rooms are directly communicating.

We waited for the groom to finish his photoshoot, and got out of the house where we found three (rental) luxury cars waiting to take the groom and the closest family to the lunch ceremony.

Wedding Day Part 2, 13:00 - Lunch with the bride’s family, but without the bride

This is the first ceremony where the family of the groom and the bride meet. It is fully organized (and paid for) by the bride’s family. Traditionally, it is done at the house of the bride’s family, but since they live in a not-so-big apartment, it was not possible and they had to do it at a reception hall. Interestingly, while vritually the entire family of the bride is present at the lunch, the bride is not present. She was still at home, waiting to get picked up by the groom, and taken care of by her mother, grandmother and sister (closest women of the family).

The lunch felt similar to the men’s breakfast I mentionned earlier, with opening prayers, not-so-eventful lunch and closing prayers that prompted everyone to leave the place. The closing was however a bit more joyful than at the men’s breakfast - there was music and we (the groom’s close family) danced to accompany him out and go pick up the bride!

Wedding Day Part 3, 15:00 - Picking up the bride

This was one of the more special moments of the day. We arrived near the apartment of the bride, where a great little band was playing music (which didn’t stop playing until we left with the bride), and sloooowly, after extensive dancing, started going up the stairs to accompany Dilshod Aka to pick up his wife. While walking up the stairs, we sang different things essentially wishing “good life to the newly-weds”, and slowly entered the apartment of the bride, where we found her in a beautiful white wedding dress and with a veil over her head and face. The following 20 minutes were full of little traditional gestures and prayers which I would not be able to appropriately narate here, but long story short, the close family of the groom was here (men and women), as well as the close family of the bride. Interestingly, the father was not there, he had stayed downstairs - as if his daughter now had to be left to her husband.

We then accompanied them downstairs and danced for them while they got in the car.

Wedding Day Part 4, 17:00 - Games?

This part of the ceremony was perhaps the strangest one for me, but maybe the most fun. We all arrived in a little hall that looked like a restaurant where the close (young) friends and family of both the groom and the bride were sitting, awaiting some dessert and refreshment fruits. In front of us, were the couple, seating next to one another in their wedding outfit. A few minutes in, a man shows up, takes up a microphone and starts talking in Tajik. Amir explains to us that it’s game time, and that this man will animate the games in a tv-game-show fashion. The animator calls 6 close friends of the bride, and 6 close friends of the groom in the center of the little hall, and explains to them the rules of the game: one has to start counting by saying a number, and the person on the left continues the count, except if the reached number is a multiple of 3, in which case the person should say a compliment to the groom or the bride. person 1: 1, person 2: 2, person 3: compliment, person 4: 4 person 5: 5, person 6: compliment. Etc… The second game was similar - they called different friends and were asked to describe why their friend (either the bride or the groom) was a great catch for their newly found partners. I remember that one of the bride’s friend said something along the lines of “she’s a doctor, so she’ll be able to take care of him if he is sick”. The animator, always making fun of the things the friends said, made fun of that one too “Dilshod Aka looks like a strong man who won’t need taking care of!”. Everyone laughed - I assume it was funnier in Tajik…

It was honestly so cute, and a fun way to get families/friends from both sides to interact with one another.

Wedding Day Part 5, 20:00 - Dinner party

The dinner party took place in a beautiful big hall, with about 20 tables set (with ~14 seats each). We had a lot of fun, ate really well, and danced a lot. As expected, men and women were seating at separate tables, albeit in the same hall. The groom and the bride were sitting at the back of the hall alone, in elevation and facing everyone Imagine where Dumbeldore would be seating, facing all students in Hogwarts. It was the same seating arrangement. . The music really was great, with a fantastic band playing Uzbek, Russian, and even Arab standard songs - perfect music for dancing. A few notable highlights was the cousin of Dilshod Aka (groom) putting her kids on stage to sing a song - what an amazing sight at a wedding… To see four ~5 year old kids singing a song for the wedding of their uncle! Really beautiful. Another cool highlight is that Dilshod Aka and his wife recorded a professional video of their love story, set in different settings, of the both of them holding hands and walking together through different things, laughing, chatting etc… They projected this on a giant screen at the wedding, as well as photos of the two of them…

Wedding Day Part 6, 00:00 - Walking back the groom to the marital house

After leaving the hall around midnight, we took the cars in the direction of Dilshod Aka’s house - the same house we had started the day at - the new marital house. We parked the car about 500m away from it, got out of them, and started a special ceremony, where we lit a giant heart of fire, and sang out loud untill we reached his house. His wife was in the car the entire time, and following the ceremony, untill she reached the house and got out towards the marital house - accompanied by the groom’s family’s women. Dilshod Aka danced a bit more with us, until the music stopped and people started leaving. I believe Dilshod Aka has not entered the marital house and bedroom that night - his wife was left sleeping alone to rest and get used to her new house, without having to add the pressure of doing the marital “deed” after such a long and stressful day. That was left for the night after wedding night…

Spotlight 1 - The Speech

Yeah, we had to give a speech….

From the beginning of the day, and particularly at the dinner party, people were very curious of our presence in the wedding - we all clearly looked foreign, and that intrigued people - in a good way. I assume it’s rather special and unusual to have foreigners coming to a wedding in Samarkand, and I felt it was seen as a positive thing.

The animator of the evening came to us and asked us (in Tajik - so Amir had to translate) to give a speech. Just 2-3 of us to say a few words about what we thought about the wedding, saying thank you to the family etc.. And well, we did! I actually started, Ayush continued, Zenne went on, and finally, the animator took the microphone, looked at Kevin (who is chinese-american, and chinese looking) and said while handing him the microphone “China, speech?”. Woke culture hasn't reached Uzbekistan, they have many preconceptions about other countries, and do not make a real effort in hiding them - I think they don't relate with the culture of finding cultural and country stereotypes "offensive". . Each of us spoke for about 30 seconds to extend our congratulations to the couple and thankfulness to the family, and admiration for Uzbek hospitality. All of this in English, and we knew that most people wouldn’t understand 5 words of what we’d say. So many people were filming us and looking at us in a very curious way. It felt like we also were an attraction of the wedding and people were happy about our presence - which felt great :)

Spotlight 2 - The Cake

The cake cutting and eating tradition was perhaps the most touching part of the wedding for me. It is tradition that the groom cuts cake and feeds it directly into the mouth of the bride’s family, and that in turn, the bride also feeds the cake directly into the groom’s (female) family’s mouth. I thought this was really beautiful and touching.

Spotlight (well, not really) 3 - The Bride

None of the men from the groom’s side (including Amir, Dilshod Aka’s direct cousin) heard the voice or made eye contact with the bride during the entire ceremony, and that is characteristic of Uzbek tradition. During the wedding, the bride is rather preserved, and it is inappropriate for other men (except her close family e.g. brother, close cousins) to engage in any contact with her. For women, it was however fine, but they still had very little interaction with her, eventhough they took her all the way to her bedroom in the marital house (which we, men, did not do). I imagine that she was very shy and didn’t speak much during the wedding, and I also imagine that it’s seen as some form of purity and innocence to not be extravagent for a women on her wedding day. I recall always seeing her, during the entire day of celebration, with her hand on her heart, smiling, and looking down. This also applies to every picture she had to pose for during the ceremony….

This felt very different than most weddings I have experienced in my life - where the bride is the center of attention and should interact and be celebrated by people around her. Here, it felt like the bride was indeed the center of attention - but in a different way: while pictures of her were projected onto a big screen for everyone to look at, we would unfortunately not be able to speak to her…

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