Gold Teeth and Construction Projects

Just a couple of quick anecdotes from the past week. As my time in Tashkent comes to a close I find I'm having less and less to talk about. I'm starting to concentrate more on life post-Uze.
One of the Uzbek guys in the office and I had planned to go for dinner yesterday after work. Just after lunch he came to my office and asked if we could postpone till next week. He said he was having some dental work done, it wasn't finished and he was worried about the food damaging the work. Of course I agreed and then asked what dental work he was having done as more than one sitting sounded serious. He's getting 9 new false teeth. 9. The guy is two years older then me. I mean, fair dental care is not as advanced here as it is the west. Uzbekistan is a......developing country and things like going for dental checkups twice per year aren't that high on people's minds when they're just trying to survive. He assured me though that we was not going to get gold teeth, which is what most false teeth are still made of here, and was instead going to get ones that look like regular teeth. So that's progress....I think.
Construction projects can be impressive affairs here. Of course I have no idea as to the quality of the work or the wages paid to the workers, but the sheer number of people assigned to projects is amazing. This afternoon, I was walking by the main theatre in the centre of town. There's a small square to one side that I guess the government decided needed some re-doing. There were hundreds of workers there. This is a square that is not even the size of a typical Canadian city block. And it'll probalby be completely re-made in about 3 days. I just won't be sitting under any new structures that are built on it.