The guidebook touted the Afrosiyab Hotel as “one of the big four star hotels in Samarkand.” And, it had a bar! We wanted to peek inside and, one night, conjured up an excuse to do so. Walking back to our hotel from dinner, I had to pee. Ritchie suggested that we casually walk past reception as if we belonged there and use the bathroom. It was a good plan.
As we got closer to the hotel, we saw that the parking lot and rooms were dark. Maybe all of the guests were already sleep? But, when we walked into the lobby, gates were pulled over the reception desk. A grand chandelier hung unlit. No one sat on the fine couches, no one came out of the elevators, no footsteps echoed off the marble tiles. A lone security guard sat idly on a bench, illuminated by a few overhead fluorescent bulbs. I asked this man if I could use the toilet. He assented and vaguely pointed out the location of the toilets, presumably out of site down the dark corridor.
I was uncomfortable. Who knew what – or who – lurked around the dark corners? I called for Ritchie to come with me, but he presumably didn’t hear. In the darkness, I could make out what was once a grand hotel. More unlit chandeliers hung from the ceilings. What appeared to be a large bar with swanky couches sat darkly and silently to the side of the hall. Around another corner, a hand-written sign taped to the wall informed visitors that “The bar is closed.” There were no guests, no employees, and no lights. I strongly wished that Ritchie had come with me. I finally found the bathroom down another dark hallway. When I flipped the switch, a single bulb illuminated a long-untended bathroom with perpetually running toilets. There was, of course, no toilet paper.
When I made it back to the foyer, Ritchie and I approached the guard. “What happened to this hotel?” we asked. “Where is everyone?”
The guard told us that the hotel used to be the best in Uzbekistan, “even the best in Central Asia!” In the old days, every room was filled at a rate of $250 a night. The hotel employed 200 people. However, mismanagement had led to decline. “The managers were busy lining their pockets,” the guard said. “Now these 200 people don’t have jobs. There is only me. The managers should be hung!”
I asked who owned the hotel, wondering why they would look the other way while management stole money and let such an investment run so devastatingly into the ground. He replied, “The government. This was a government hotel. Who will buy it now? What will I do when they no longer need a security guard?”
As we were walking home, Ritchie turned to me and said, “Stop having feelings!” He knows my tendency to internalize too much of other people’s despair. But my feelings went beyond the once-grand Afrosiyab Hotel and the security guard who, at 55, would soon be jobless because of the greed of a few government employees. I was thinking about the entire system of government in Uzbekistan and the hierarchy of corruption, the greed of the highest officials who line their pockets while people like our friendly security guard suffer.
