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The wicked old Soviet Union is dead, but travellers wondering what the Evil Empire was like at the height of its boorishness, needn't despair. After all, there's still Uzbekistan.

Just four hours by Aeroflot jet from a Moscow cluttered with nightclubs, casinos and Jaguar dealerships, Uzbekistan is still two coups behind the Russian capital, politically and socially. Neither the openness of glasnost nor the common sense of perestroika has penetrated Uzbekistan. First absorbed by Russia in 1865, Uzbekistan remained a fanatically loyal part of the Soviet Union until it became an independent republic in 1991.

I arrived in Tashkent ("City of Stone"), Uzbekistan's capital, a main transit point on the fabled Silk Road linking China with Persia, half expecting to see camel caravans, ancient bazaars and Middle Eastern mystery. The only camels I saw were smouldering cigarettes. Tashkent was indeed once a special place, as Samarkand and Bukara still are, but a massive earthquake in 1966 virtually levelled it, and the Soviets rebuilt the town in their own image.

That's not all they built in their own image; for decades Uzbekistan reflected all the very worse aspects of the Soviet system. What's more, the woeful corruption, the amazing arrogance and utter intolerance of the people in power are still all on display, long after the Soviet system itself has rotted away. Tashkent's largest park still flaunts a mammoth sculpture of Karl Marx (fierce red face in full beard) and you still have to leave your passport with the hotel desk clerk when you check into a Tashkent hotel, a practice no longer required anywhere else in the former USSR.

Uzbekistan is still ruled by a hard-line government. Its president, Islam Karimov, is the former leader of the Republic's Communist party. When he noticed history's turn away from communism, he sagely changed his party's name to the Popular Democrats, despite being neither popular nor democratic, and kept all the same people in the same jobs.

It didn't take long to find out about the corruption. After being told by the Russian Embassy in Bangkok that my Russian visa was all I needed to visit Tashkent, I was charged a whopping US$100 for an Uzbekistan visa when I arrived at the airport, with no receipt of course. A middle aged Tashkent taxi driver told me that he didn't understand the word democracy and neither did any of his friends.

The biggest hotel in Tashkent is the Uzbekistan Hotel. Built in the early 1970s, its 480 rooms of bleak concrete overlook Revolutionary Square. Lifts stop at midnight, as does the hot water supply. The dingy lobby is always awash with Turks, Russians, Afghans and Indians meeting oily local bureaucrats. The hotel boasts two bars, a dank basement pub with glass doors chained shut most of the time, and a lobby bar which a Stalinesque lady bartender deigned to open for only two hours a day. Trouble is, she never told in advance which two hours.

Ordering a gin and tonic, I was told that the cost was $6, payable first. After paying what amounts to a day's pay to a local, I was informed that she had no ice, no lemons, and no mixer. Behind her stood a giant refrigerator with a lock big enough to secure an aircraft carrier.

"What about in the refrigerator?" I asked.

"Ez broke!" she sneered.

Across the lobby a hard-currency shop sold mixer, for which I had to pay another $2, and then bring it back to the lobby bar to mix my own drink. The Telex charge at the hotel's "business centre" was $20 for ten words. The fax machine was broken and e-mail had not yet arrived. The hotel's hard currency store sold Russian "champaignsky" for nearly $30 per bottle. Two blocks away, in a Russian store, I bought the same bottle for $1.50 worth of Rubles.

One of the dangers of staying in the Uzbekistan Hotel (apart from dying of thirst) was the difficulty of getting back in after venturing out; each time I returned I had to literally push my way past the large but brain-dead doorman who apparently believed his duty was to keep everyone from entering his hotel, even the guests.

Approaching the faded but still elegant doorway of a Tashkent restaurant - purported to be the city's best, specializing in Uzbekistan's excellent and spicy cuisine, a Russian friend, her young daughter, and I, found our way blocked by a nattily dressed doorman.

"Restaurant not open now," we were told. [It was lunch time.]

"Do you serve Uzbekistan cuisine?" we queried.

"What food do you want?" he quickly countered.

"What food do you have?" we parried.

"Tell me what you want," he volleyed, "and I'll tell you if we have it!"

After still more debate - and a flash of foreign cash - we were grudgingly allowed to enter the restaurant where, to my astonishment, an excellent meal, with a good Georgian wine, was served for about $5 per person.

The Russians have kept Islamic influence down, but as they've retreated within the original borders of Russia, Islamic nationalism is making a comeback, and it is worrying some people. Tashkent and other large cities in the area have extensive settlements of ethnic Russians, who have lived here for many generations. Ironically, many Russian families were originally exiled to Uzbekistan from Russia by the Soviet government. Though they now feel Uzbekistan is their home, many are frightened for their future. Young Russians are leaving in droves and taking their skills with them.

However, travellers who tire of Tashkent's urban haughtiness will find a haven 30 kilometres northeast, in the sleepy but charming little town of Chirchik. With a population of less than 50,000, Russians and Uzbeks seem to get along just fine here. Three hundred metres higher than Tashkent, Chirchik is also cooler and greener.

Its morning market is a gourmet's delight: an agricultural bazaar where $1 buys a heap of strawberries or apples or cherries, all freshly picked. There are also truck loads of potatoes and tomatoes, with an armful of roses with which to set the table. In the distance shimmer the snow-crested Tien Shan mountain range [literally ‘Heaven/Sky Mountain’ in Mandarin Chinese], the melting snows of which form the fast flowing and frigidly cold Chirchik Canal, swimmable only on the hottest days and even then only by the bravest.

In Chirchik, the summer heat is mellow, not searing, and the air is sometimes so still that one can hear bees buzzing in the clover. In the velvet softness of evening old men play checkers under the shade of ancient trees while elderly babushkas gather to gossip as they have for ages, while their granddaughters chase lightening bugs along the canal.

The only thing to remember: bring your own gin.

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