UZBEKISTAN

April-May 2026

As Susan said on Facebook, Uzbekistan is a world of mosques and mausoleums and minarets and madrasahs.

It’s a world of mud colours (latte, cinnamon, beige) framed by brilliant cobalts and indigos and turquoises. 

It’s a Muslim world but not an Islamic state. It’s a world where there are grape vines in front of people’s houses and decent wines found in some restaurants. It’s world where young women often wear scarfs that are more restrictive than their mothers or grandmothers but we told it’s just because it’s fashionable. 

It’s a world of 6 lane highways with occasional slow downs for some of the worst pot holes I’ve seen or because sheep are being herded by men on foot, on donkey and on horse. People have to risk life and limb and run across such roads because zebra crossings don’t have much meaning.

It’s a world of deserts, rather like some of ours - flat with light layers of scrub - where the houses sometimes look familiar, with tin roofs and wide verandahs. It’s a world of snow-covered mountain tops where most of the electricity, in an environment where water is scarce, comes from hydro dams. 

It’s a world with ancient cities circled by modern ones but none of them have the high rise environments of our urban centres because it’s also a world of earthquakes. For example, 80% of Tashkent was destroyed in 1966. Workers were sent from all over the Soviet world to help rebuilt the city which it is now a place of wide boulevards and large apartment block complexes. Many of those workers stayed on adding to the 100 ethnic groups that make up the country. 

Our travel through Uzbekistan was in the form of a private tour for Susan, Sebastian and me, arranged by a local company, Advantour,  whom I can highly recommend. They booked hotels and train tickets and flights. They arranged drivers and guides and tours in every city we wanted to visit. And Uzbek’s mix of culture and ethnicity was reflected in our guides. There was the dour Dimitri in Tashkent who only started smiling when he realised we were interested in his other life as a visual artist and actor. His heritage was Czech, Polish and Russian. There was cheery Shohruh in Khiva who was proud of his Khorezm culture, one with deep Zoroastrian roots, even though he was a good Muslim. Beautiful Guljon in Buhkara had a name that was both Persian and Uzbek. Susana, in Samarkand had Armenian and Tartar Crimean heritage and had chosen to be baptised as a Christian in her 20s. Muhtasar in the Fergana Valley was the most religious of the group, proud that she’d learnt Arabic from her grandmother who also spoke Persian. On the day when we just missed killing a small boy as he run unaccompanied across a 6 lane highway, she decided that we must have all done good deeds that Allah knew about and that’s what saved the child, particularly because Sebastian nurtured frogs who might otherwise not have lived so long.

We started in Tashkent, home to the largest Islamic Cultural Centre in the world which only opened in March this year. It’s a huge building containing information about both the pre-Islamic and Islamic history of Central Asia with one of the four oldest Korans in existence as a centre piece in a huge marble hall with over a million Swarovski crystals. Given that the key tourist interest points on historic Silk Road are Muslim sites, this was a great introduction to the country. There is a sense of grandeur still to be seen from the Soviet period in buildings such as Hotel Uzbekistan and fancy metro stations featuring love stories and astronauts but the statues of Lenin and Stalin have been replaced by a new murderer: Amir Temur or, as we know him from Christopher Marlowe’s work, Tamburlane the Great. The irony of an independent Uzbekistan adopting this warrior as a national symbol is that for many people in the west of country he’s an enemy not a hero because he ravaged their cities just as he did ones in Iran and India. Luckily, some Uzbek cities have stuck to building statues of medieval astronomers, mathematicians and poets.

We then flew west to Khiva, one of the great slave markets on the Silk Road into the 19th century. Even given that history, it was still thrilling to pass through the  mud walls of this ancient town and stay there amongst the 3,000 locals that still live there. It is rather like Venice - not to look at but because it could be called a “museum city”. It’s real but at the same time, it exists in its restored glory because of tourists and the streets were full of people selling wares, some it locally produced and some replicated in China. I was expecting Samarkand to have the most impressive Islamic architecture but until I discovered a little more about the role of minarets, I loved the Kaltaminor, an unfinished structure from 1851, 29 metres high and covered in the most vibrant turquoise-blue tiles. I knew that minarets were designed for the call to prayer. I knew that they served as watch towers. I learnt that they acted as light houses for the camel trains travelling the Silk Road. But I had’t known, they were place for killing women who transgressed - tossed off the top. So no matter how beautiful they were, I rather lost my taste for minarets.

After driving for nearly 8 hours on some of the worst roads I’ve been on for the first hour or two and then through the desert, we finally reached Bukhara, another town full of exquisitely designed Islamic buildings. Its history goes back long before the Arabs arrived in the 7th century because it was one of the main centres of Persian civilisation, passing into the hands of Alexander the Great. It was also a stronghold for practitioners of Nestorian Christianity before the Arab armies arrived in 650. They were clever enough to use taxation to encourage submission to Allah although it took a couple of hundred years. The city was almost levelled by Genghis Khan but there are still buildings from the 10th, 12th and 16th centuries. Many of the buildings were restored under the Soviet  regime presumably out of guilt as they bombed the city in order to encourage the Emir to flee and set up the Bukhara People’s Soviet Republic. 

Samarkand is the city that usually springs to mind when thinking about the Silk Road but interestingly, its sense of history wasn’t as powerful as the smaller cities. It has impressive sites such as Registan Square and the mausoleum of Amir Temur but they are scattered throughout a city built under the Russian and then the Soviet empires. But maybe, it was just because we were becoming a bit blasé about the exquisite tile and majolica work, the painted ceilings and the covered pillars. How is that possible, you ask? I suspect you have to either dedicate days if not months of your life studying every wall and every pillar or just accept the fact that you a tourist floating by and simply respond, without much knowledge or understanding of motifs and signs and Arabic writing, to the beauty of it all.

Whereas Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand are known for their blues, the towns of the Fergana Valley are red and gold with roses growing in gardens, both public and private, and stalls by the side of the road with strawberries, flowers and apricots being sold by colourful young women in glittering scarves and long dresses. Mind you, the older ladies go for glitter in a big way too. What was particularly amusing was that they found us fascinating as well. I’ve never had my photo taken with so many random strangers. We share neither language no culture but they wanted to have their pictures taken with us. 

As for that other part of the travel experience, the strawberries weren’t quite as brilliant and the bread wasn’t quite as interesting as in Morocco but the non-alcoholic classic mojitos continued to refresh us, the kebabs were equally as good, the Uzbek wine was quaffable and the main staple plov, with it’s rice and beef (or lamb) and carrot made for an an enjoyable meal. 

Some of you, in responding to my Moroccan newsletter, expressed concern about my knee. I confess it hasn’t got any better so I really am the old croc of the party but Sebastian has been amazingly patient with my slow pace and has been assiduous in pointing out every step or piece of cracked concrete to ensure that I remained on my feet. And I have remained upright long enough to do some shopping. I could have done much more because there is a reason the Silk Road is called exactly that. Uzbekistan is full of wonderful woven silk and cotton in the form of wall hangings, jackets, gowns, shirts. I thought I knew how silk was made but until I saw a lady weaving 40 threads from individual cocoons to make one thread and saw another lady using an 8 pedal loom to make double sided ikat material or yet another adding thin metal wires as she wove to create silk velvet, I really didn’t appreciate the intricacies of the process. I wanted to buy so much but common sense, luggage limits and modesty finally prevailed.

Uzbekistan is a world of riches - strong faces topped by colourful caps and scarves, deserts and snow capped mountains, and all that extraordinary architecture and history.

Photos:

1. Shakhi-Zinda Necropolis, Samarkand

2. Kosmanavtlar Station, Tashkent

3. Centre of Islamic Civilisation, Tashkent

4. Amir Temir statue, Tashkent

5. Katlaminor Minaret, Khiva

6. Chor Minor, Bukhara

7. Entrance to the Uligh Beg Madrasah, Registan Square, Samarkand

8. With local ladies, Fergana

9. Chorsu Bazaar, Tashkent

10. Itchan Kala, Khiva

11. Silk Workshop, Margilan

12. State Museum of Applied Arts, former residence of Alexander Polovtsev, Tashkent