Uzbekistan

Tashkent (2.5 million, the largest city in Central Asia) was almost entirely rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1966, giving it a distinctly Soviet character — wide boulevards, monumental buildings, metro stations that are genuine works of art (Kosmonavtlar station: space-themed mosaics and cosmonaut busts from 1977). The Chorsu Bazaar for the full sensory arrival into Uzbekistan.

💡 The Tashkent Metro (1977) was one of the most ornate in the Soviet Union — each station designed by different architects with different themes. Kosmonavtlar (Cosmonauts) station has portraits of Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova in mosaic. Photography was prohibited until 2018.

3h30 by high-speed Afrosiyob train from Tashkent. Samarkand — the capital of Timur’s (Tamerlane’s) empire in the 14th–15th century, the midpoint of the Silk Road for 2,000 years — has the finest concentration of medieval Islamic architecture in the world. The Registan (three madrasas facing a central square, each covered in lapis and turquoise tilework) at sunrise, before the tourist buses arrive.

💡 The Registan complex is UNESCO World Heritage and the most recognisable image in Central Asia — three 15th–17th century madrasas (Ulugbek, Sher-Dor, Tilla-Kari) arranged around a central plaza, their facades covered in geometric tilework. The Tilla-Kari (gilded mosque interior, entirely covered in gold) is the most overwhelming interior.

Gur-e-Amir (Timur’s mausoleum, 1404, a ribbed Persian dome on a drum covered in lapis-glazed tiles, the architectural prototype for the Taj Mahal) — Timur and his dynasty lie beneath an octagonal chamber under the largest onyx slab in the world. Shah-i-Zinda (the Avenue of Mausoleums) — 11 consecutive mausoleums from the 14th–15th century, the most intact medieval funerary complex in Central Asia.

💡 Timur’s sarcophagus at Gur-e-Amir has a carved inscription: “Whoso disturbs my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I.” Soviet archaeologist Mikhail Gerasimov opened the tomb on 21 June 1941. Germany invaded the USSR the following day. This is coincidence, but an extraordinary one.

2h from Samarkand by train. Bukhara is the best-preserved medieval city in Central Asia — the 9th-century Ismail Samani Mausoleum (the oldest intact Islamic building in Central Asia), the Kalon Minaret (1127, 47m, the minaret from which criminals were thrown — the only structure in Bukhara that Genghis Khan ordered preserved after his 1220 destruction of the city).

💡 Genghis Khan destroyed every city in Central Asia in his 1219–1221 campaign — Samarkand, Bukhara, Merv, Urgench — killing millions and ending the Islamic Golden Age in Central Asia. When he saw the Kalon Minaret of Bukhara (1127), he is said to have dropped his hat in admiration and ordered it spared.

The Ark of Bukhara (a massive fortress-citadel occupied continuously since the 5th century, residence of the emirs until 1920) and the three trading domes of Bukhara (16th-century covered bazaars still in use, one for money changers, one for hat makers, one for jewellers) for the most intact Silk Road bazaar experience in Central Asia.

💡 The last Emir of Bukhara fled in 1920 when the Red Army (under Mikhail Frunze) besieged the city. He escaped on horseback to Afghanistan. The Ark fortress — where he had recently executed British agents Frederick Bailey and Charles Stoddart — was stormed and the city bombed from aircraft for the first time in Central Asian history.

5h drive across the Kyzylkum Desert (or fly 1h from Bukhara). Khiva — the Ichan Kala (inner walled city, UNESCO World Heritage Site, the most intact medieval Islamic city in the world) is a maze of 14th–19th century mosques, madrasas and minarets within a 2.5km mud-brick wall.

💡 Khiva’s Ichan Kala is the most complete medieval Islamic urban environment anywhere — a city within a city, with the Juma Mosque (Friday Mosque, 212 carved wooden columns, each one different, the oldest from the 10th century) as its centrepiece. Unlike Samarkand and Bukhara, Khiva was never destroyed by the Mongols.

The Kalta Minor (the “Short Minaret” — the unfinished minaret begun in 1852 by Muhammad Amin Khan, intended to be the tallest in Central Asia at 70m, left at 26m when the Khan died in battle in 1855) and the Islam Khoja Minaret (the tallest in Uzbekistan at 57m, 1910) for the panoramic view of the mud-brick city. Fly from Urgench Airport (UGC) to Tashkent.

💡 The contrast of Khiva with Samarkand is the essence of the Uzbekistan Silk Road circuit: Samarkand is magnificent and restored; Khiva is dusty, incomplete and genuinely medieval. The Kalta Minor’s unfinished top (the Khan died before it was complete) is more honest than any finished monument.