After arriving in Tashkent most tours begin with a morning flight to Urgench at the other side of the country to begin the tour in the historic fortified city of Khiva. Fortunately for me, the normal morning flight was sold out so I would be taking the midday flight leaving me with some sparetime in the morning to explore Tashkent around the hotel.

This is my first time in any of the former Soviet Union countries and already from the airport and getting my visa I knew there still some Soviet era rules and formalities lingering around. I wanted to walk around the central district near the hotel taking pictures so I asked at reception if this would be a problem.

They assured me there would be no problem and didnt mention any concerns to me. Happily I went on my way exploring. Adjacent to the hotel is a history museum that I wanted to visit.

At first it appeared to be closed for renovations but then I saw signs pointing to a side door. It was still early so I thought I'd check back after 9am to see if they are open.

I could see the Senate building on the other side of a main street and didnt want to cross over. There were some low walls next to the underpass staircase so I thought I could stand on that to get a better view to zoom in. Some older women who were standing on the street started waving to me to get down.

Then I went about another block and came to the Romanov Palace. I'm not sure what the story of this building was but it was going to be included in my Tashkent city tour on my last day so I was trying to see things that wouldnt.

I'd been noticing lots of police everywhere, especially by the entrance to the metro where my guide book says no photography is allowed and the hotel had told me the same thing.

There was a rather nice historic building with the giant seal of Uzbekistan which I photographed. It also had nice railings in black with a gold eagle in central points. I took a photo on wide angle of the entire building with railings.

No sooner had a taken the pic than a car parked at the end of the street where officers were standing had screeched up to me at maximum speed and two police officers came running out. I said salaam and turned on my camera to show them I hadnt been taking any sensitive pics.

They made me delete the pic of the Uzbek seal and of the railings. I scrolled thru the ones before which they said were ok. Now I felt quite conspicuous arousing the attention of other police officers so decided to put my camera away for a bit.

The whole atmosphere felt very strange now. I was noticing a pair of green uniformed police officers about every 100m or so. I know they were watching me now so I started to walk in another direction.

I came to a metro station which was rather nice looking. However there were police officers standing at different angles to each of the entrances. I went round to the front of the staircase and got a rather piercing and forbidding stare from the officer so I just walked away.

It was made from large brown ceramic tiles and had a giant engraved mural atop the staircase. At the bottom of the staircase were black doors people were entering and leaving from. It would have been nice to go and look but I was feeling a bit uncomfortable now.

From 9am I then noticed lots of people coming out on the street and sweeping. Every meter was another person sweeping. Even though they'd swept their spot they continued to stand there sweeping the same spot.

Then I noticed people in black coats standing in various spots making sure the people were sweeping. Nobody was talking or taking breaks. Even odd the whole area seemed surreal from from sci-fi movie.

Nobody was talking on cells, laughing, listening to headphones, no kids or normal everyday activity that would be taking place. Office workers were coming out of the metro and walking silently to their destinations. The occasional one would say salaam to each other.

We'd been raised with so many negative impressions of the Soviet Union, that people were forced to work in labour camps or worse. Was my hotel some guilded cage and had I wandered into some Gestapo-stan?

I tried to go back to the museum to see if it was open. The guard indicated I had to come back in a hour after 10am and made sure to escort me out the building and that I was walking away.

I went back to hotel which felt much safer and to ask the desk guy what was going on. He laughed and said its nothing like the Soviet Union. They just sweep this road as the President drives here everyday. By 10am they all stopped sweeping, were standing there chatting, and then dispersed.

When I told my guide about this later in the trip he wondered why I found this so strange. He explained this is normal in the spring and autumn for people to come out together to clear the streets and garden areas. Don't we do this in our countries?

In small communities all the residents come out and they start from the top of the street and go down cleaning everyones houses. That sounded a lot more reassuring that this wasnt some sort of forced labour.

This was after all my first 12 hours in the Soviet Union which we'd hear so many things about during the cold war. Perhaps wandering in the heaviest security district in the city was not the best introduction.