Uzbekistan Toilet Highlights

FLUSH's founder recently went on holiday in Uzbekistan and took some fun pictures of toilets. While we looked for some interesting tidbits of historical toilet history for the country, not much showed up for us (at least in English). With this in mind, we're sharing the images in a light-hearted, not rigorous, blog of toilet highlights from her trip. We divided them into fun public toilet signs and remote pit toilets. Enjoy!

Fun Public Toilets

Uzbekistan seemed to have many public toilet options in tourist areas, which is not always the case worldwide (hello, US!).

Toilet signage after immigration at the Tashkent International Airport (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

Most public toilets charged a fee of about $0.50, which typically included toilet paper allocations and an attendant maintaining the toilets for the public. This high level of access to toilets made walking around the sites much easier.

A public toilet option inside the gates of Khiva (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

The public toilets in tourist areas were flush toilets - usually with a squat pan. If there was a handicapped stall, then you had access to a seated toilet.

A public toilet near the gates of Khiva, with a small attendant desk to take fees (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

A public toilet option along the road in Samarkand (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

A quite public toilet hidden away in Khiva (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

A restaurant toilet with pretty designs in Tashkent (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

Remote Pit Toilets

Beyond the main thoroughfares and urban areas where tourists congregated, toilets became much simpler. Almost all toilets used outside the cities while in transit were pit toilets.

An ecological pit toilet at a yurt camp by the remaining Aral Sea beach (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

This makes some sense, as the country has quickly become deserted since the Soviets drained the Aral Sea in the west. It doesn't make sense for toilets to have water flushed when water is in short supply.

A pit toilet overlooking the hills near Shahrisabz (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

When asked a tour guide on one of the drives through the country, he joked that, while the Soviets brought a lot of things with them to the country's cultures, toilets weren't one of them. He shared that toilets were almost always pits at home (unless you lived in a city where it was piped for flushing), and that it was what people were most used to using.

A pit toilets on the side of the road in Karalkalpakstan (Credit: FLUSH/Kim Worsham)

Using the pit latrines on the road was a bit less savory than in the tourist areas—mainly because they were not always cleaned and the toilets sometimes overflowed. Still, having toilet access was a big relief, even if they weren't glowing.

That's it for now! Have you seen any fun toilets on your recent adventures? Please share your stories with us!