In the early 19th century, the name ‘Khiva’ struck fear into the hearts of Western explorers. The capital of a famously sadistic despots known as the ‘Khans’ (direct descendants of the redoubtable Genghis Khan), it served as the final stagi…

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Straddling the borders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the formidable Kyzylkum (literally ‘Red Sand’) forms a vast area of parched dunes (here known as ‘barchans’) and baked clay flats. Visitors may sample its distinctive atmosphere on short…

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Only a handful of places still manufacture silk in the traditional way, the most famous of them in the Fergana Valley, a day’s drive southeast of Tashkent across the Tian Shan range. Although it’s encircled by snow peaks, the ‘valley’ is a…

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The small but most important town in the Kyzylkum, Nurata, was founded by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC in the foothills of the Naratau Mountains. The remains of the fortress he built can, amazingly, still be seen on the south s…

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Thousands of captured artisans from Persia, Iraq and Azerbaijan were put to work by Timur to create his imperial capital, Samarkand. Encircled by snow-lit mountains, the exquisitely symmetrical domes and minarets at its heart became the mar…

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To the north of Samarkand rise the rocky Nurata Mountains – an imposing granite barrier separating the fertile belt of central Uzbekistan from the sands of the Kyzylkum beyond. The majority of locals in this region are Tajik camel herders a…

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One of Central Asia’s most ancient cities, this oasis 50 miles (80km) south of Samarkand, on the far side of the Gissar Mountains, was where Alexander the Great met his wife, Roxana, in the 4th century BC. It is better known, however, as th…

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For the majority of visitors, the Uzbek capital serves primarily as a gateway hub, where you can recover from your jet lag in a modern, comfortable hotel and acclimatize with short excursions around the city. Time permitting, we recommend c…

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More than two millennia ago, a sophisticated irrigation system channelled meltwater from the Pamirs into the Amu Darya (Oxus) Delta, a region known as the Khorezm, transforming the desert into a fertile oasis of lakes, reed beds, marshes an…

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The chimeric monuments of Bukhara were mostly erected by the descendant of Timur, and by the Uzbek Shaybanid dynasty who succeeded them in the 16th century. In recent years, a huge amount of work has been carried out by the Uzbek government…

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