90 km South of Samarkand, the great capital of the Timurid Empire, on the other side of the mountains, lies Kesh, now known as Shahrisabz, the city where Amir Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane) was born. Shahrisabz is actually the Persian name of the city, meaning "green city".…
Tashkent (Uzbek: Toshkent) is the capital city of Uzbekistan and the most populous city of former Soviet Central Asia. Most package tours to Uzbekistan or even many travellers just pass by Tashkent, but this is a mistake - it is completely worth staying 2 days in Tashkent.Tashkent is a historical…
A thousand kilometres West of Tashkent, Khiva (Uzbek: Xiva), historical capital of Khwarazm, is the remotest of all Silk Road cities in Uzbekistan.Even though its buildings are generally more modern than those in Samarkand and Bukhara, only Khiva preserves a complete and unscathed wall. In Khiva, until the beginning of…
The Metro is one of the main attractions in Tashkent! In the Soviet Union, when a city reached a population of 1 million it needed a metro system. Construction of the Tashkent Metro - the oldest in Central Asia - started in 1972 and its first line opened in 1977.Now…
For centuries, Bukhara was one of the main cultural and religious hubs of Central Asia. It also had a bustling trade activity due to its location by an oasis in the Silk Roads. Samarkand is probably more famous in the West, but Bukhara's historical importance is even greater.Bukhara does not…
Samarkand is a legendary city, its name the most evocative in Uzbekistan and all Central Asia. Nowadays, Samarkand (Uzbek: Samarqand) is the second most populous city in Uzbekistan and a must in any trip in the country. Actually, only a few large monuments survive of its old city, but what…
When we told people we were travelling to Uzbekistan, not few didn't quite understand what we were saying - "what's there to see?" was a typical question and the more prejudiced "wow! a stan?" ("-stan" is a suffix that means land, just like we say "England" or "Finland"). To be…