Zaamin or mountains, ancient nut tree and unique radio telescope

As I promised in my previous post, I present you a story about my trip to Zaamin, Uzbekistan on the Suffa plateau.

Now Uzbek government pays big attention to the domestic tourism. More and more popularity is gained by one-day tours. In order to popularize domestic tourism, the government has opened access to previously closed territories of national reserves. People have the opportunity to admire the beauties of Uzbekistan! The inflow of money for the maintenance of these same reserves is increasing. Since prices are very, very democratic, many people have an excellent opportunity for active and cultural recreation.

I often travel around Uzbekistan and notice that it becomes popular not to throw garbage, but to collect it in a bag and throw it into the urns or take it back to the city. This is encouraging, because more recently the regional administrations of the foothill areas and activists have simply made titanic efforts to clean the places of rest. People say that Nephrite Lakes (I wrote about them in the previous post), were filled with empty plastic bottles and garbage bags about two years ago. It took a lot of effort to restore their pristine beauty. However, Uzbekistan has to go through a long and arduous path to becoming the norm to clean up its garbage or throw it in an urn, rather than on the street or under a tree.

Well, let's move on to my trip to Zaamin, or rather Zaamin National Park. This park is located in the Jizzakh region of Uzbekistan and was opened in 1976 to preserve and restore unique local ecosystems. It borders on Tajikistan, so a special permit was required for his visit.

Frankly speaking, I did not know much about the Zaamin National Park. I knew that there is located a very famous and popular sanatorium. That's probably all what I knew. Therefore, before the trip, I "googled" and was surprised to learn that in the park there are lynx, bears and even ... porcupines. Looking ahead, I will say that I saw only the plush figure of a big bear and it was not very well done. It seems that the figure of the beast was molded by a half-blind designer with the words of a drunk plumber. Anyway, the kids liked and they were happy to take a photo with it.

So, we left Tashkent early in the morning, at 4 am on the six cars. The first couple of hours I was dozing off. I woke up when we were already approaching Jizzak and stopped at the gas station.

After about an hour, the steppe landscapes gave way to the foothills and we entered a small tunnel of trees.

Soon the greenery quickly disappeared. When we started to climb we were surrounded by the hills scorched by the heat, on which there was not a blade of grass. Soon we drove up to the Zaamin water reservoir and stopped to get some exercise and take pictures.

Near the reservoir there is a tiny market where we bought some local dried fruits, kurt (salted balls from dried cottage cheese), flat cakes and souvenirs.

Unfortunately the stop was short because there was a long way ahead. We loaded into our caravan of six Chevrolet Lacceti cars and drove on.

Soon we entered the territory of the Zaamin National Park. After a short drive we stopped near an interesting place called "Bobo-yenghok", which translates as "Nut tree the Elder".

This is a very old nut tree, whose age is about 700 years. The locals call this tree "777 branches". I do not know how many branches actually are, but it has seven trunks.

It is believed that this place has healing properties. Near the nut trees flow a small trickle, which gives coolness even on the hottest day. The perfect place to relax and unwind. By the way, near the nut trees made 6 or 7 small areas, where local residents spread mattresses-kurpachi and rest in the company of friends.

But here we did not stay too long and went further - to the sanatorium Zaamin.

It is located in juniper forests at an altitude of 2000 m above sea level. Diseases of the nervous system and respiratory organs are treated here. Well, our nerves and breathing everything are OK, so we didn’t stop, and drove a little further to the waterfall.

Frankly speaking, forgot how this place is called, so I just call it a waterfall. It was great there, although the people crowded around. I managed to sit down on the stone and admire the falling water.

We had a little rest and a snack near the waterfall, and then drove on to the plateau of Suffa. Suffa - in Uzbek means "bench". I do not know where my ancestors saw a bench here but the place is very picturesque. We left for a small area, from where a beautiful view of the plateau. On this plateau is the eponymous radio telescope.

This is a unique object. Actually, soon it will be unique, when the construction will be completed. To build it began already in the distant 1985 but after the collapse of the USSR, the construction was frozen for many years. Recently it was decided to resume and complete the construction.

The Suffa radio telescope with a diameter of 70 m will operate in the millimeter range. Of course, there are in the world already similar telescopes, but the uniqueness of the project is that there will be created a network of radio telescopes - the Russian radio telescope "Millimetrone" in orbit and "Suffa" on Earth. There is a project to turn this duo into a trio, if a third radio telescope will built near the Uzbek observatory Maidanak.

With the help of this radio telescope we can see the nucleation of stars and nuclei of distant galaxies. In Uzbekistan are 300 days of sunshine in the year plus the sky near the Suffa plateau is very clear and slightly cloudy, which makes the observations very convenient.

We stood a little on the site, made some panoramic photos.

Having traveled around the plateau, we descended into a very beautiful valley. Ahead I saw several buildings - it was a border post.

• Of course! - I remembered, - We are on the border with Tajikistan!

Do you see the mountains in the background? This is Tajikistan. Until recently it was a closed territory and the border areas were mined. With the arrival of the new president, changes and reforms are in full swing in Uzbekistan. One of them was the cancel of the ban on visiting previously closed territories and a significant warming of relations with neighbors.

But politics is politics and we came here to admire nature. We unloaded from the cars and the guide took us to a small gorge.

A small trickle, flowing through the valley, gathered strength into the gorge and turned into a fairly fast mountain river.

It rans down, wriggling among the huge boulders. We climbed through them until we reached a small cliff. Deciding not to test fate and not climb further we camped among the stones and had a picnic.

Stones, demolished by the current, formed small natural baths, in which the most daring members of the group immediately got to swim. The water was very cold and pierced to the core but fatigue as a hand took off.

After resting and water procedures we returned back to the border post, plunged into the cars and drove on, circling the Suffa plateau. We climbed one of the mountains from which an excellent view.

This was the final point of our trip and we were now waiting for the way back.

We loaded into the cars and went back to the radio telescope, from there to the sanatorium Zaamin, past the Nut Tree the Elder (Bobo-yongok) and went further to Tashkent. In the mountains a cool breeze was blowing and the heat was not felt. The windows were opened in the car and the cold mountain air blew in them but when we came down from the mountains and as if at the click of fingers, the cold air changed by hot. I had to close the windows and turn on the air conditioner.

It was an interesting trip to the beautiful places. In total, the journey took almost seven hours, but even this did not spoil the impression of the trip...

!steemitworldmap 39.654122 lat 68.391281 long Zaamin or mountains, ancient nut tree and unique radio telescope d3scr