Central Asia's Retention of Russian Language for Social Identity
The Uzbek word for "hello" and "thank you" are respectively "salam alaykhum" and "rakhmat," but in part of Tashkent, one will only hear "zdrastvuyte" and "spasiba," their Russian equivalents. Bring a foreigner makes hearing Russian more likely, as it is the "high" language used for communication with foreigners (just like French in Arabic-speaking Morocco), but unlike Morocco, many people in Uzbekistan, even if they are not ethnically Russian, choose to speak among themselves in the high language.