Shipment of personal goods and how to go about it.
The easiest thing to do, if you don’t want to pay 30 euro per kilo excess luggage, is to bring your extra 20 kilo suitcase to the Cargo department at the international airport and have it sent as unaccompanied luggage.That is what the Czech airlines agent assured me: a few days before leaving would be OK! At my request he sent me an example of an airway bill so that I knew what I needed to fill out. I consciously prepared a list of the goods in the suitcase, with value in dollars, in case. My gut feeling told me ”better to go now, 10 days before the actual flight, as you never know what extra information is needed and then I still have some time” . That appeared to be very wise indeed.
I asked our teacher cum friend Mukaddis to accompany me, as I would probably not understand the Russian instructions and I chartered ‘our’ taxidriver Djamsheed (his name is that of a former Persian king) to bring us to the airport for the regular price of 5000 cym (€1,50) We left at 9:30 and it was not too hot yet.
As the cargo department was in an obscure area, like everywhere in the world, I asked Djamsheed to wait for us, against payment of 10.000 cym for half an hour, as I didn’t expect we would need more time. ( where did I get this silly idea?). We then were sent from one office to another; first to get an admittance slip into the cargo area proper; then to take descriptions of goods, get the suitcase weighed, get our airwaybill stamped in yet another office, stairs up and down, no, wrong one, next building, no light, bumped into a cleaning woman, other side, yes, lady has just gone to the bathroom, wait.
Every time we had to pass the customs, show our passport, empty our bags. After an hour or so it was time to pay. There was a long line waiting for the cashier’s office in a very small and warm corridor. After 15 minutes waiting without any move in the cue, Mukaddis, by now quite irritated by the bureaucracy, went in and asked the lady in charge (who by the way sat idle at her desk) if we could get some special treatment as we were here for unaccompanied luggage, which was different from the businesspapers of the others waiting in line carried. Upon which she said, very angrily since that shows that you are in power and superior, that we first needed another stamp.
Luckily, outside the building in the shade were two older traditional women selling drinks, partly home made in water bottles and also some softdrinks and - of course- a big pot of tea, chai. I got some ‘compote’ which stands for a diluted cherry syrup, but with ice! And bought a coke for the driver.
Anyway, fifteen minutes later we had the stamp and the line had gone, good luck! But once inside, another officer told us that, actually, we couldn’t pay at all, since I am a foreigner, and only Uzbek people can send goods, unless I had diplomatic status. Also, since I was flying Czech airlines, their agent should approve of the luggage being sent with their carrier and maybe he could find a way. But of course the chap didn’t know where the Czech airline offices were. Prepared as I was, I had their telephone number with me and with my telephone (saving money) the guys in front of the car discussed how to get there. The driver happy enough to earn some extra money with all this time abiding.
Another 15 minutes later we were at the row of buildings for the various airlines. Samarkand airlines is agent for Czech ailines, but since their offcie is too difficult to find the guy actually came out to meet us at the roadside- where we were safely parked in the shade of some trees at noon with 37 degrees C. Finally someone who understood and spoke Engklish. He explained that in this country there are no regulations for unaccompanied luggage. Either you have personal luggage on your flight, or you have cargo, and have to submit to the rules for that. Clear! And indeed I couldn’t send cargo as an expatriate, so he recommended me to ship through an agent, like TNT or DHL.
Now I just yesterday got the price indication for shipment of 20 kilo (persian carpets) to Holland, by air and that amounted to 600 euro’s, so I was not pleased with this suggestion! It would be just as much as the price of excess luggage
Meanwhile the driver had become really involved in the matter and together with Mukaddis they decided it was much much better for me to send my things with ordinary mail through the main post office. So that’ s where we went. The post office people were very helpful and even though I couldn’t understand the Russian and Uzbek, I could see how they were carefully wrapping up parcels for other people in grey paper and – to my surprise- unbleached cotton cloth. Probably cheaper than paper in this cotton growing country! In a few minutes it was clear that here you could send anything up to 10 kilo’s, so my suitcase of 20 kilos would need to be repacked, on the spot, and the books would need to be sent separately from the clothes. I already envisaged the ordeal. But, was their advice, at the main railway station they would take parcels up to 20 kilos! As you can guess, that is where we went. We arrived at 12:30, when they had just gone for lunch. Having come this far the driver suggested we should wait, which we did. And I engaged in an interesting discussion with Djamsheed about the particularities of Uzbekistan.
At 12:55 we were third in line for a closed door, together with some women who were about to send 3 huge rectangular reinforced plastic Chinese bags ( I recognised the type of bag from Ethiopian and Indonesian airports) to Russia. A lively discussion followed about prices and procedures. Once inside, at the correct opening hour!, it appeared that each item inside my suitcase needed to be weighed separately, put down on a list , in Russian, in threefold, together with its present value. So we set out to that task and it took about half an hour. And, as expected, I had to take out the books. When finally submitting the suitcase for inspection the guy in charge noticed that I had some embroidered jackets in my suitcae. This is typical Uzbek and therefore belongs to the country. One is only allowed to ship it if the item is new, not antique or used. So it is necessary to present these items to Customs, just to establish if it is OK. Sigh!
Customs resided around the corner, so Mukaddis took my 2 jackets and 2 traditional puppets there for them to judge. They had just gone for lunch! So another half hour later they were back in office and decided that this was too special and needed a formal stamped paper from the Ministry of Cultural affairs, without which it would be impossible to export those items. Good grief!
So, ‘what to does?”, as the first lady of Sergeant Samual Doe, head of state in Liberia in 1982 used to say. I left out the embroidered items and agreed with Mukaddis that next Monday we would go together to the Ministry to get all ‘suspected’ items in our luggage cleared and stamped. The remainder of the contents in the suitcase we woud now send. Amazingly, this 15 kilo’s freight would cost me 60.000 Cym by land and 90.000 cym (equivalent 30 euros) by air to be delivered by regular post at my home adress!
Fascinating! We only needed to change the list of goods -in threefold of course- to another value, as 5 % of that value would be added to the price. So Mukaddis set dowm again to copy the whole list ,in Russian, into new forms, in order to have only an additional 5000 cym(1,50 euro) to pay.
Then it took some time fot the post office guy to wrap my suitcae in cotton cloth, sewing it by hand into a neat parcel ( it looked very experienced actually!) and ‘ glue’ it on the stitchlies with a brown laquer. And lo and behold they put a ‘normal’ internationally recognised bar code on it and gave me the receipt so I can track and trace it! You would think this was the end of the story but no, we still had to pay. This took another 15 miniutes as the cashier had to wait for an official email anounving the parcel to be taken into the system and based on that she could calculate the price, only after that was I allowed to pay the 95.000 cym.
By 15:30 I was home again and the good thing is that I now know what to do: unpack the 70 kilo trunk with personal goods, which would cost 900 euro to send by DHL, into 20 kilo parcels in plastic bags and bring them to the trainstation/postoffice on Tuesday for shipment. Go with the flow! J, The onkything I am sorry about is that I didn/t bring my camera to register this beautiful process for the rest if the world to see!
