Difference between revisions of "Taksovanie (Uzbekistan)"

|style="font-size:1.1em;"|In Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, the term ''taksovanie'' refers to the widespread practice of private car drivers’ providing what across the post-Soviet space is known as ‘private carrying’ (Russian: ''chastnyi izvoz''), that is, paid rides to their fellow residents as a means of generating income (see also [[boda-boda]] and [[trotro]] for similar practices in African cities). The term itself is a colloquial Russian noun stemming from the similarly colloquial verb ''taksovat’'', which literally translates as ‘to taxi;’ accordingly, ''taksovanie'' can be rendered as ‘taxiing.’ The majority of the drivers involved in this practice occasionally offer paid rides to passengers whose destination is more or less “along their way” (Russian: ''po puti''), which suggests that much of this mobility paradigm is in fact a form of paid carpooling. However, sustained unemployment and low salaries have forced a considerable part of Tashkent’s male population to take up ''taksovanie'' either full-time, as their primary occupation, or part-time, as a source of secondary income. The majority of part-time drivers are low-wage workers and students who taxi only during after-work hours and at weekends, whereas full-time ''taksovanie'' is practised by pensioners, the unemployed and, in recent years, the scores of young men from the provinces who migrate to Tashkent in search of employment.