Guli jewelry can be admired but not purchased

The New Bell Tower built in Tashkent in 2009 next to the old one especially for Gulnara Karimova © Uznews.net

The New Bell Tower shop that carries Guli jewelry produced by Gulnara Karimova is now a gallery. 

The shop reopened as a gallery in the city center near Amir Timur park on Tuesday. The Guli jewelry – made out of corrals, pearls, emeralds, white, yellow and pink gold – can be seen on display but cannot be purchased.

“You are only allowed to look at the jewelry,” tells the gallery assistant to surprised customers. 

The jewelry on display is not as luxurious as might seem at the first glance and there is a lot of empty space on the shelves. 


Hard days for Googoosha 

Perhaps the sudden switch from shop to gallery can be explained by the recent troubles of its owner who has been battling the country’s law enforcement for the survival of her business empire since the beginning of October. 

Gulnara Karimova reported recently on Twitter that two of her bodyguards have been arrested and are being tortured. 

Karimova has explained her current misfortunes by saying that her mother, Tatiana Karimova, and her younger sister Lola are trying to destabilize her business. She has said that president Islam Karimova, her dad, does not know what is going on. 

At first her four TV channels – Forum TV, Maraz TV, NTT, SofTS – were shut down. Then her radio stations. That coincided with the beginning of the art week Style.uz on October 22, which is organized by Karimova. She was thus cut off from the means of publicity of her week-long party. 

Also in October her audio and video chain Nirvana was raided by the tax and customs authorities. The chain sold CDs by Googoosha – Karimova’s stage name. 

On November 14 Karimova’s expensive boutiques were also raided in Tashkent. A couple of days later a pro-government website Podrobno.uz reported that gross violations were discovered in the raided Tashkent stores, namely New millennium, New millennium kids, New millennium sport, Geox, s.Oliver, Levi’s, Benetton, Mango, Adventure, Antonio Moratto, and Chicco.

Among the violations were keeping double books, non-payment of customs fees and sales taxes, as well as actually making the clothes on site and attaching brand-name labels to clothes from China. 

Before these violations in Karimova’s business dealings were over-looked as she is the president’s daughter. The fact that her empire is being dismantled piece by piece seems to indicate that the president has actually sanctioned these raids and closures.