FROM BRAZIL ON THE SILK ROUTE

(From Uzbekistan)

The whole of Brazil only knew of the existence, despite maintaining diplomatic relations since 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan, a sealess country, in Central Asia, after the conquest of a place in the 2026 World Cup. First time in history, with a youth team led by Khusanov, a 21-year-old Manchester City defender. It is fair to say that Itamaraty, which has a strategic vision of Brazil, is also there. Chancellor Mauro Viera visited Kazakhstan and this week, Uzbekistan. With representatives of PETROBRAS, EMBRAER, which has already sold aircraft to the country, WEG, and refrigerators, to a country that grew this year in the first quarter 8.7%, with a forecast of 6.8% for 2026. Foreign exchange reserves of more than 70 billion dollars, and significant foreign trade growth. In summary, a market with many Chinese, all American products and brands, but open to Brazilian products. And with the fertilizers we need.

Tourist cities, such as Bukhara and Samaragand, are worth a visit. They show a history of conquered and conquerors, who dominated this region not for the silk road trade, but also for their military conquests, with which they dominated a territory up to India in the fifteenth century, but developed science and technology, as in medicine and mathematics, which the world uses to this day. And that we, with our Western arrogance, insist on ignoring. Samarkand, considered a center of Islamic culture, brings tourists from all over the world and contributes a revenue of 10 billion dollars a year, which is better not to compare with the revenue of tourism in Brazil. The monuments require a lot of investment in conservation, money that sometimes comes with international help.

Impressive is that 60% of the population of 40 million is made up of young people under 30 years old. Well-educated, they look for a job around the world and send more than 18 billion dollars a year to the country. English perfectly is spoken by ten-year-olds and is taught in all schools, in addition to Uzbek and Russian.

A multi-ethnic country, but predominantly Muslim, left the USSR, after 70 years under a brutal yoke. Many Uzbeks were sent to the Gulag, many died in the Great Patriotic War, where they served as cannon bush and all lost all their properties. This left a deep mark on the population that, with fear, watches what is happening in the war in Ukraine with the question, can we be the next?

The Jews who arrived in the sixth centuries and were, especially in Bukara, a mainstay of trade on the Silk Route, more than 200,000 at the beginning of this century, were reduced to less than a thousand. Soviet oppression, total impoverishment, made the community leave the country. But, you can without any fear walk with a Maguen David, and you will be less bothered than in Paris. But the country is Muslim, the state builds giant mosques and Muslims are much more religious than Catholics. Radicals or not, they are increasingly present in this world.