The Hotel Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

In 1988, we were travelling around what was then Soviet Central Asia. We had scheduled a couple of nights in Tashkent in order to see what we were assured was the best ikon museum in the world. When we got to the city, we discovered the museum had been closed for weeks due to a sewage leak.

We should have taken that as an omen and fled the place double-quick.

As we walked along the dingy hotel hallway towards our room, (I think it was on the eighth floor) we couldn't help but notice the large hole in the floor--stretching from wall to wall--over which someone had laid a plank to walk across. As we peered down to the seventh floor hallway, we saw a smaller hole in the floor below, allowing a glimpse of the sixth floor. Fortunately, the fifth floor was not on display.

We finally made it to the room, which, aside from having just enough room to sidle between the twin beds, wasn't too bad. There was even a balcony (which was a bit hard to get to because of the beds in the way of the balcony door that didn't lock). Well, part of a balcony. The left and front walls, and part of the floor on the left side, were no longer there. We closed the door hastily and piled our bags in front of the door to keep it from blowing open in the breeze, and went to look at the bathroom. Which had a single wet grey towel and a toilet that wouldn't flush. We climbed back down to the lobby (no way were we going to use the elevator again in that place) and mustered our meager Russian to ask for help. After an hour or so, the floor matron brought us one reasonably clean and completely dry towel. A while after that, a guy with steel teeth (really!) came and dismantled the toilet, took about three pounds of wet sand out of it, and put it together again. He turned out to be quite friendly, and even knew a bit of English. He told us, with evident pride, the Tashkent was the best hotel in the city.

We fled early the next morning.

Does anyone know if the ikon museum is still there?