plov | FridgeMagnet Tales

After an 8 hour train journey, we arrived at Bukhara. As detailed in the previous blog, most of it was through the desert (as you can see in the map below). The train journey was hot and tiring but we were really looking forward to our stay at Bukhara.

Our route from Khiva to Bukhara along the border of Turkmenistan

Bukhara has been a center for trade and culture for over 5000 years and a key city of the Persian empire. It is considered one of the oldest cities in Central Asia itself and the old part of it has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Under the rule of Amir Timur, it became a major religious center. Spelled Buxoro in Uzbek, it is today the seventh-largest city of Uzbekistan in terms of population. There are many monuments in Bukhara which stand testimony to the cultural behemoth that the city used to be. And in this blog, we will be exploring this beautiful city. We continue our journey on Day 3 from the Khiva blog.

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Here’s a quick background of Khiva before we dive into the travel account. Khiva sits right at the border between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In the local Uzbek language, it is written as Xiva (note this because it will come in handy during train bookings). It gained prominence as a key stop for caravans on the Silk Road. Khiva comes under the Khwarezm region of Uzbekistan and was once the capital of the Khanate of Khiva.

The term Khanate is derived from the Khans who used to rule here – Khans are usually part of the Mongol lineage (think Genghis Khan etc), though not always. The city then became infamous for being a slave market in the 17th century where a large number of Persians and Russians were enslaved and sold. After the Soviet collapse, it became a part of the new country of Uzbekistan in 1991.

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Creating memories – One Fridge Magnet at a time!