Conspiracy (yes, I said it!), Chevys, My Street Vendor and МВД

Conspiracy theories abound here. I mean obviously and I am defiitely not gonna get into them all on this public blog. However, one that has affected most of us who exist in hard currency lately has been the plummeting black market exchange rate. I went to my usual spot to change money on Tuesday evening and the guy I found told me the rate was 2100 soums to the dollar. I was like, 'wtf last week it was 2300'. I asked him what the deal was and he said the government was trying to drive down the the black market rate to make it more comparable to the official rate. Not sure what that is exactly right now but you can find it on xe.com for example. It's way lower. I told him to forget it and I left. However the next day I tried somewhere else and while the rate was better it wasn't much better...maybe the first guy was right. Damnit, I hope prices come down accordingly but I suspect they won't.

What else....the most common car in Uzbekistan are Chevrolets. I bet you wouldn't have thought that. It surprised the heck outtta me too. They're the same Chevy models we'd find in North Americo too. Well at least the same as in Canada. I finally asked someone about it. Apparently and I haven't confirmed this, but there used to be a Daewoo (sp?) factory here that Chevy bought out a few years back. Everyone used to drive a Daewoo but now all locally produced (read: affordable) cars are Chevys. Apparently they can't even be exported to Russia (again, just what I've heard).

I'm still not a big fan of the bazaars here. They're huge, noisy, very much Uzbek affairs and I always feel like I'm getting scammed. Well, actually I know I'm always getting scammed. Not sure huge amounts, but still. Anyway one of the Uzbek guyss in my office has introduced me to the street vendor he goes too. She's Kazakh (or so he thinks) and sits three days a week with a few boxes of fruits on a street corner near my office. She doesn't jack up her prices and brings in only fruit that she thinks people will want. Best of all, all her front teeth are gold (it's a thing here). Anyway at least I'm eating more fruit now.

Finally, I think the news that Moscow Dinamo, one of the oldes hockey clubs in Russia, is likely going to fold, has been in the news in the west this morning. Well, I know it was because I spend half my day on cbc.ca and tsn.ca. Anyway, I've been wathching the KHL finals between AK BARS Kazan and МВД (which is the Russian Interior Ministry's team...so weird). Anyway, what I've found most amusing is their love for the 'Hey Hey Hey Goodbye' song. Even when the hometeam is losing it will come over the PA system. I guess it's just associated with hockey, but still kind of funny.