On the sleeper train from Tashkent to Nukus, a drunk Uzbek army officer wants to know where we’re from. “England” is met with a noncommittal shrug. On hearing “Scotland,” though, his face lights up. “Scotlandia!” he slurs, miming bagpipes. “Braveheart!” In a mix of fluid Russian, broken English, and animated mime, he expresses a sentiment we hear again and again, all across the country: Scotland is to the United Kingdom as Uzbekistan is to Russia—only in Uzbekistan’s case, independence was won. Then, with no apparent sense of irony, the officer takes out his phone and shows us his background of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He gives a thumbs-up. “Putin, I love.”
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