Destinations

Destinations

One country, several countries within it. Where the light falls differently.

Tashkent from above at sunset, a great tiled dome and minarets rising over the rooftops of the city.
Plane trees and the oldest Qur’anTashkent

The capital and the usual starting point. Old mosques and a great bazaar sit beside wide avenues and the first metro in Central Asia.

The three madrasas of the Registan in Samarkand at first light, the square still empty.Kraftabbas · CC BY-SA 4.0
Blue domes over Timur’s capitalSamarkand

Timur’s capital and the most famous halt on the Silk Road. The blue domes and tiled portals of the Registan are the picture most people carry of Uzbekistan before they arrive.

The Kalyan minaret in Bukhara seen from the square below, its brick bands lit by afternoon sun.Maksimsokolov · CC BY-SA 4.0
Two thousand years, on footBukhara

More than two thousand years old and best understood on foot. Trading domes, madrasas and the Kalyan minaret fill a compact old town where everything is close.

The mud-brick walls of Itchan Kala in Khiva under a clear sky.Adam Harangozó · CC BY-SA 4.0
A whole town inside its wallsKhiva

A whole walled town, Itchan Kala, kept almost entire, like a museum under the open sky. Sleep inside the walls and watch the minarets change colour at sunset.

Timur’s birthplace, beyond the passShakhrisabz

Timur’s home town in the green foothills south of Samarkand. What remains of his Ak-Saray palace still gives the measure of the scale he built on.

A spring, a desert, a lakeNurata and Aydarkul

Desert and lake country between Samarkand and Bukhara. A spring with sacred fish, a night in a yurt camp in the Kyzylkum and a camel ride towards dusk.

Silk and clay beyond the mountainsFergana Valley

The country’s craft heartland, over the mountains from Tashkent. Silk woven by hand in Margilan, blue ceramics fired in Rishtan and a khan’s palace in Kokand.

Avant-garde art and a vanished seaKarakalpakstan and the Aral Sea

The far west of the country. A collection of once-banned Soviet painting in Nukus, the ships left on the old seabed at Muynak and a night on what remains of the Aral shore.

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