On the last full day of our trip to Uzbekistan, we arrived at our booked hotel in Tashkent. It was still quite early, and we were quite excited to leave our stuff and head out to explore. However, our plans quickly unraveled, and the afternoon took an unexpected and unpleasant turn when, during check-in, the receptionist asked us for our hotel registration…
I’m like: “Excuse me?”
“Your registration slip from the last place you stayed.”
“Sorry. Got no such thing.”
“Ok, we can find it. Where are you coming from?”
“Zaamin.”
“Where did you stay there?”
“In a house.”
“What was it called?”
“Nothing that I know of. Won’t ‘house of random village family’ do?”
“Can‘t you find it online? Where did you book it from?”
“Found it on the spot. I don’t think that place had a registered physical address, let alone an online listing.”
It turned out we were dealing with a strange Uzbek law—likely a remnant of Soviet-era spy paranoia—requiring all foreigners to obtain a registration slip from every place they stay in the country. This was the first we had heard of it, so we quickly did some research on the spot. According to what we found online, the law was strictly enforced during Islam Karimov’s 25-year reign. Following his death in 2016, the authorities have reportedly become more lenient about enforcing it. However, the law officially remains in place, and in theory, we could face hefty fines for failing to comply.
Furthermore, hotels are also held accountable for checking their guests’ prior registration slips, with the threat of fines or even closure if they fail to do so. As a result, this hotel now outright refused to let us check in without producing that damn thing.
The owner called the relevant authorities to ask on our behalf what we are to do now. They told him that we had to show up at a certain passport office, pay a fine, and receive a note with which to check-in. The situation was, mildly put, frustrating. But seeing no better option, we did as advised.
We took a taxi to the aforementioned passport office: an enormous, Kafkaesque concrete block. An abrasive, big-boned lady at the reception directed us to an office on the first floor. Several people were queued in the waiting room outside. My apologies, I don’t do such things habitually, but due to my exasperation, I opened the door and lurched in.
The guy behind the desk listened to me for a full minute as I explained the situation. When I finished, he continued to stare at me with the same silent, amused, cow-like expression he’d worn the entire time. “You don’t speak English, do you?” I asked. He shook his head.
I tried again in my best mediocre Russian. The gist of the brief exchange that followed was him stating that he couldn’t do anything about it and effectively kicking me out.
After waiting on the roadside for half an hour without managing to stop a taxi, we walked for over an hour back to the hotel. We explained what the authorities had told us, but once again, they refused to let us check in. Before resorting to pitching our tent in some nearby park or another, we decided to try a couple more hotels we had noticed in the area.
The first one, around the corner, let us in without any questions. It seems we were simply unlucky enough to stumble upon the one odd place that gave a shit about this law. Now we could only pray they wouldn’t ask us for that registration upon leaving the country.
Amid the chaos at the border crossing to Kyrgyzstan late the next night, sure enough, the officer asked us for it. In a tone of mixed impatience and supplication, I told her “This is complicated now”. Kind of her, she nodded us to proceed.
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Accommodation and activities in Uzbekistan
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