Oh yeah, Putin sure did wonders to international tourism, although Russia didnt really banned any countries from visiting, it's unadvisable to do so while war is waging. Whether I travel myself is highly debatable, as I plan to do so with my best friends on their car and they always laugh how I am such a city boy and will not survive the trip. Primorsk is surely to be one of the destinations as I do like idea of having an access to big water. Also fish... I am a sucker for a fresh fish.

That earthquake was indeed horrible, but it also shaped Tashkent to its current state of modern city. You have my sympathy for that fire as well. It's always a great shame to lose historic buildings.

You should definitely try visiting Uzbekistan as tourist. Well maybe not now as prices went up thanks to all the Russians who hide from mobilization there, but it is a great experience nevertheless. Well unless you are vegetarian or vegan. Local food is unfriendly to vegetarians and completely incompatible to vegans. Although there are adaptations but they are not the same obviously. One good demonstration of uzbek food are easily found on YouTube as our tourism ministry finally realised that power of food bloggers is considerable one and invited every big shot like Mark Wiens and Sonny from Best Ever Food review show. They filmed excellent high quality production videos, interest to Uzbekistan finally plummeted and BAAAM. CORONOVIRUS In all its glory. Timing was so bad that I literally cried.