Bread First
According to Ferghana.ru, a loaf of bread in Tashkent is still the usual size, but in Nukus or Karakalpakstan in general, its height, width are larger than but comparable to that of a matchbox. I’m talking a small, 34-wooden match matchbox in the US, with the slice a little larger–somewhat like those holiday “gift loaves” one might make for a holiday tea table for people you don't know very well. Other pictures accompanying this article show bakeries and bread stores devoid of merchandise.
Distributing the dough
The article itself discusses the distribution of flour and dough. If dough is being shipped rather than flour, this points to a standard recipe which has a similar quality throughout the distribution area (and is not a good sign for quality, actually). It reflects a command economy. It means that regional centers are able, non-transparently, to change the quality of the flour or introduce other binders and fillers. In the U.S. before the advent of the 1880's muckraking journalists, this was quite common also. Plaster, for instance, was used to extend flour and create profits: the bread of the pioneers.
Transparency means quality–and so does competition. If dough is arriving pre-mixed at each bakery, then no one can compete in terms of flavor, nutrition, or price. The elements of production are the same. The profit also never comes to the locality, but stays in the regional center where the allocations are decided. But that's a dough of a different color.
This distribution describes the state of politics as well
The fact that Karakalpakstan gets a smaller loaf than Tashkent is a reflection of a couple of things: a. the cost of transport in a high-price energy environment. However, Uzbekistan is just not that big. b. where potential social unrest is a larger problem. Big-city Tashkent has more people, closer together–a bread riot in a village is far more easily contained or ignored. c. elections upcoming, however much of a circus they may be, for the same reasons: unrest and voter activity.
Elections in the midst of starvation aren't usually a good idea in nominally democratic countries: they tend to create upset, upheaval, revolutions. Ruling parties generally try to provide at least basic welfare at the advent of the electoral moment. Uh, that isn't happening, at least in the provinces. President Karimov has introduced a system of food coupons, but if a bread ration is so much smaller, its value is only partial. Which leads one to suspect that the election is in the bag, and that the attitude of leader impunity has reached a new altitude.
We have to wait and see, but this is not a situation that argues for a stable Central Asia.
Further reading:
Cooking oil disappears in Tashkent
Uzbek bread is great–back when you could get it, at neweurasia.net
Closed supermarkets in Tashkent–two months ago, at neweurasia.net
Photo: bread.com