SHARQ TARONALARI Music Fest in Samarkand: Great Music & People, Too Many Babies & Police

I guess I’m a sucker for spectacle.  I’ve been known to watch the Olympics opening ceremonies (just leave out the smoke machines, please), and I’ve traveled around the world more than once with music and cultural events in mind and on the itinerary, if not exactly the destination per se.  That includes WOMAD’s and Womexes, and multiple SXSW’s, and music and cultural festivals in cities as diverse as Livingstone-Zambia, Pyongyang-North Korea, and Zanzibar.  

Sharq Taronalari is not the kind of music festival where you top up on your favorite intoxicant, then boogie till the sun comes up with music from all over the world.  No, this is more like music carefully curated from state-sponsored entities in Uzbekistan in coordination with state-sponsored agencies in foreign countries to provide representative selections from representative groups to showcase the world’s ethnic diversity, sort of an Olympics of world music, without the competitive edginess.
 
No, this is not WOMAD.  But then again, it’s not North Korea’s Arirang Mass Games, either, a carefully orchestrated propaganda spectacle that would rival or surpass the opening to the Beijing Olympics in showmanship, but still a carefully-staged propaganda event.  Still, here you are expected to sit down.  That’s one of the only problems really, not that kids threaten to turn the venue into their own private playground, but that the Soviet-era authorities seem overly concerned to try and stop it, acting as truant officers to control the miscreants, to the point of limiting access to the festival’s entry.     
 
That’s the way I found the festival, halfway over already and limiting access to the public, gates closed.  A self-appointed ‘guide’ offered to get me in for ten bucks, but I didn’t see his credentials, and I’m not sure that I wanted to be led around like a cow with a ring through his nose, anyway.  I’d already contacted the management before in preparation for the visa and for any rights to swag and brag; they issued me an official welcome, but nothing more.  I guess I should have printed it out. 
 
While waiting I figured I should check out the town at sunset, so that’s what I did; good idea.  Independence Day is coming up within the week, so festivities are already warming up, and things are lively, especially around the nearest public water fountain, Independence Square I think it’s called, with people milling around and patriotic songs playing in the background.  Then there’s another party down the street, a wedding I think, with hundreds of guests in attendance, people speaking on stage in turns, and some pretty darn good music interspersed.  I’d already heard some pop music coming from the radio and had decided that I liked it.  That’s dangerous.  Last time I fell in love with a country’s music, I fell in love with something else, also.
 
The people are friendly.  When I went back up to the show’s entry a visiting American immigrant and her family struck up a long conversation with me.  After a while the authorities finally started letting some more people in to the show, so I slid through with another group of foreigners, who presumably knew the drill from previous days.  It’s good, too, one ‘national’ group after the other playing in order with little down time between.  That’s good.  One hour turnaround times on stage would definitely chill, if not kill, the deal.  Now I won’t call any names (China), but some of the acts may be a bit cheesy and overacted (China), smiles forced and fervor coerced (China), in their effort to show happy minorities (China), still it’s all good fun, and clean fun, too.  There are kids everywhere!  This is definitely family entertainment, and the crowd is generally good.   
 
It turns out that the best views are of the accompanying huge projection screen, as the stage is a bit distant, and the whole event is being lavishly filmed and simultaneously projected.  There are a half-dozen camera-equipped aerial cranes working constantly and even tracks on stage for a cameraman and assistant in constant motion.  I’ve never seen that anywhere.  These guys must have trained at the Eisenstein school in Moscow.  This is more lavish than a David Lean production, if not Kubrick.  They even flashed a shot of me up there!  Now that’s quality!  No, I was not picking my nose.
 
I saw acts from China, Japan, India, the UK, Russia, Korea, and even Israel! How’s that for Muslim diversity?  Uzbekistan Airline’s in-flight magazine even features Jerusalem!  Most acts play a couple of songs, maybe three, so toward evening’s end, when a Slovak gypsy group goes on into extra innings, I give up the ghost and call it a night.  It’s chilly out on the open desert, you know.
 
Next night it’s the same drill, maybe even worse, limiting access, for what reason I know not.  Why would a musician prefer to see five hundred seated listeners than five thousand milling about?  I can’t think of a reason.  Apparently the police force has not learned the lessons of freedom and democracy.  The irony is that once you go in, you’re still looking at the same screen you can see from outside, because the stage is so far away, separated from the audience by a bed of flowers that serves what purpose I once again know not.  It looks like a graveyard; Communist symbolism, maybe?
 
Finally I just want to sit down so play my tourist card and start toward the entrance waving my passport.  It’s a crush and a push, the last thing a tourist really wants, but it works.  They let me in, still in time for most of the rest of the show.  The music does not disappoint.  There is some stuff up there that I’ve never seen the likes of.  One northern group—didn’t catch the country but may have been Sami/Lapp—send a chill down my spine.  The national costumes are a treat, too, something you’d likely never see in-country.  They’ve even got a traditional string band from the US.  Next show I’m suggesting the blues.  Uzbekistan’s own entries wrap up the show to a thunderous applause and mad rush to the exits.  It’s all over but the closing ceremonies.
 
I didn’t expect to hear any music the last day, but I didn’t expect the city to be in total lockdown, either.  Not only are cars not allowed near the event, but neither are people, a really stupid and unnecessary show of force and over-cautiousness.  It’s like the Keystone Cops, with men in blue shouting orders back and forth and no one really knowing what’s going on.  Still the previous nights’ music was excellent.  If they ever wanted to open the gates (and drop the visa requirement), they’d have a world-class event here.  As it is, it’s only a taste of the world’s diversity and the region’s hospitality.  Did I mention that these are some of the world’s nicest people?  The show occurs every two years.  C U in 2015.