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The Uzbek Itinerary
Tag Archives: uzbekistan
Tashkent – The Uzbek “Metro” Capital
The capital of Uzbekistan and the largest city in Central Asia, Tashkent literally translates to “Stone City”. It is very close to the Kazakhstan border. As with most cities in the region, it was completely destroyed by Genghis Khan only to be revived and restored to glory by Amir Timur. It was built as a modern Soviet city after the 1966 earthquake – including the iconic metro which continues to operate to this day!
Our journey started at Tashkent and we were now back after an amazing journey covering Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand. When we left off in our last blog, we had enjoyed visits to the iconic monuments of Samarkand and boarded the Afrosiyob high speed train to Tashkent. Let’s dive right into Day 6 of the trip!
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Samarkand – Where History and Beauty Converge
Dating back to the 7th century BC, Samarkand (Samarqand in Uzbek) is one of the oldest cities of Central Asia (alongside Bukhara). It lies very close to the Tajikistan border and was also an important city in the Persian empire. Alexander the Great captured the city in the days when it was called Maracanda. It then passed to the Persians, Turkics and Mongols (as it is the case with most cities, Genghis Khan came and destroyed the entire place). The city gained its peak during Amir Timur’s time – becoming a cultural and religious centre. In fact, Ibn Battuta (the inventor of #wanderlust) called Samarkand “one of the greatest and finest of cities, and most perfect of them in beauty“. Today, we dive right into this beautiful Silk Road city!
Enchanting Bukhara – A Treasure of the Silk Road
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.
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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Time Traveling in Khiva, A Hidden Treasure of Uzbekistan
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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The Roughest Start We’ve Ever Faced | Central Asia
A trip to Central Asia was part of our plan for 2020. The itinerary included Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It was a 15-16 day plan (like our usual summer breaks) with a lot of travel to remote and local places. Little did we know that our lives would change completely before we actually ended up making the trip.
For starters, the world shut down for almost 2 years due to the pandemic. While we could never have guessed that it would take so long for the world to return to normalcy, we did figure out that travel would be impacted for atleast 6-7 months. So, we squeezed in a tiny vacation to Seychelles and got back just 8 days before India announced its lockdown. The more important change was that we had a new travel companion – our baby P! He would turn two in July 2023. This would be his second international trip (we had visited Turkey when he was 1 year and 4 months old).
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