Ecotourism as a natural source of inspiration for art and creativity

The opening anecdote of mydissertation proposal was the storyof how the famous pop band Yalla’ssong «Uchkuduk» was written – abouthow when in 1981, the legendarygroup drove through the smalluranium-mining town, songwriterYurii Entin allegedly wrote the songwithin 40 minutes. I won’t bore youwith that story here – everyonealready knows it. But what youmight now know is that everyonewho read my dissertation proposalbegan to hum the song. The entireHistory Department at Harvard hadheard it by late January 2024, andmy father – who is from Canada– now regularly listens to it on itsown. I recently created two differentplaylists of Central Asian music for mystudents and my colleagues, includingan overwhelming number of songsfrom Uzbekistan, to great success.At work, my colleagues office loveto comment that I’ve «created amonster.» No one can stop listeningto Uzbek music. Indeed, it seemslike Uzbekistan has created thismost beautiful of monsters. Its manypeoples – Uzbeks, Karakalpaks,