After a wonderful time in Istanbul last week, we flew to Uzbekistan, a largely Muslim country of around 36 million people. This is the largest population of all the countries in Central Asia. Our first stop in Uzbekistan was the capital, Tashkent, which tantalised us with its old town, historic sights, and Soviet background.
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| Barak khan madrasa, Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
Tashkent is in the Western Tien-Shan Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage site. It has 2,200 years of history, and is known for its many museums, and mix of Soviet-era, modern, and Islamic architecture such as in the madrasa photo above. It’s a sprawling and large city with an interesting “old town” which was close to where we were staying. As soon as we arrived, we went out to explore it.
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| Ancient Chorsu Bazaar, Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
But we didn’t get far that afternoon, because we discovered the amazing Chorsu Bazaar. This market is absolutely huge, and the oldest bazaar in Central Asia operating for over 2,000 years. At is centre is a giant green dome that provides cover for meat and fish products, then for acres around it, are stalls that sell absolutely everything you can imagine.
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| Brooms at Chorsu Bazaar, Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
As we walked around, we saw Harry Potter-like brooms, Uzbek bread being baked in traditional ovens, and tasted some local food including somsa (like a samosa), which originated in Samarkand. We also nibbled on the local speciality of peanuts boiled in sugar or honey, with sesame seeds. It was a wonderful first day in Tashkent, with a promise of more to come.
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| One of the ornate Soviet-style train stations in Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
But Tashkent is a big city of over 2 million people and many of its roads are five lanes wide one-way. So the next day, to see as much as we could of this sprawling city, we caught the metro into the city centre for a hop-on-hop-off (HopHoff) bus tour. Uzbekistan was once part of the Soviet Union so the metros here are very ornate affairs, and similar to those we’d seen in Russia.
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| The iconic Soviet-style Hotel Uzbekistan, Tashkent |
After managing to negotiate the metro system, we arrived at the iconic Hotel Uzbekistan, with its full-on Soviet-style architecture. We boarded the HopHoff bus there and spent the next couple of hours enjoying the city’s main sights. A highlight was the Treasury of Ancient Oriental Manuscripts, listed by UNESCO as one of the richest manuscript repositories in the world.
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| Marg at the beautiful Minor Mosque, Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
Other highlights were the beautiful white Minor Mosque built in 2013 of white marble - it is one of the largest Mosques in Uzbekistan, and the Khast Imam Ensemble - a UNESCO site that is a religious centre consisting of madrasa (school of Muslim studies), and several mausoleums, museums, and cathedrals.
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| Top: Khast Imam Center, Congress Hall. Below: Bread sellers, Broadway, Tashkent |
We also enjoyed seeing the modern Congress Hall, bread-sellers pushing their carts around the city - the bread here is a huge round loaf about 3-fingers deep, and walking along Broadway which is one of the main streets of Tashkent. Other interesting things included the many boys flying kites in the city. Wherever you went, you could spot a kite very high in the sky.
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| Amir Timur Square, Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
After the tour, we shouted ourselves a restaurant meal of traditional Uzbek food at the amazing Uzbekistan Hotel. The restaurant is on the top floor providing great views of the Amir Timur Square, nearby government buildings, and the modern part of Tashkent. Then we walked around a bit seeing this part of town before catching the metro again.
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| Adobe buildings flanking narrow streets in Old Town Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
We were aiming for the streets of Tashkent’s old town. Unfortunately, we think we got off the metro at the wrong station and had many kilometres of walking before we found it. But it was very interesting when we did, with its narrow winding streets flanked by low-built adobe houses fronted by private courtyards.
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| Soviet-style apartment blocks, Tashkent, Uzbekistan |
Quite footsore by now, we left the old town, and trudged toward where we thought our hotel would be. But we got lost and ended up walking through some huge Soviet-style housing estates. Eventually, we found a taxi to get us home. That night, we enjoyed a traditional meal of lamb shashlik and vegetables. Delicious. The next morning, we took a train to the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand, but you can read about that in the next blog.
This blog is one in a series about our travels along the Silk Road of Central Asia.