Out of the Blue: Uncover the Oft-Overlooked Beauty of Uzbekistan
On an immersive tour, Alexis Buxton-Collins traces Uzbekistan’s epic landscapes and storied Silk Road past.
In the vast expanse of Registan Square, oceans of turquoise, cobalt and azure tiles sparkle in the bright sun. Islamic schools constructed between the 15th and 17th centuries dominate three sides of the plaza and their perfectly rounded domes loom over ornate façades decorated with thousands of lustrous faience tiles arranged in complex, interlocking geometric patterns, devotional texts and galaxies of golden stars.
Samarkand is as much an incantation as it is a city. The three simple syllables sing of camel trains laden with fragrant spices and patterned silks, bustling bazaars where turbaned merchants haggle in a dozen languages and brilliant domed mosques glow in the harsh light. For millennia this oasis has been a vital stop on the Silk Road, drawing the admiration of everyone from explorer Marco Polo (“a very large and splendid city”) to Alexander the Great (“even more beautiful than I imagined”). I’ve long dreamt of following in their footsteps and even though getting here no longer requires a month’s-long trek across the desert, this fabled destination still induces awe.
If it were in Europe, Registan Square would be swarming with tourists. But in the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, there’s just me and a few hundred other travellers, most of whom are swallowed up by the scale of the breathtakingly beautiful monuments around us. “It’s like music for your eyes,” says guide Shuxrat Radjabov. I’ll hear this phrase repeated many times during Intrepid Travel’s nine-day Uzbekistan Adventure.
The journey begins 300 kilometres away in the capital, Tashkent, where Radjabov narrates a history stretching back 2000 years before concluding, “so here, it’s young!” Historically, the city was occupied by Arab, Mongol, Kazakh and Russian troops before eventually being levelled by an earthquake in 1966. Rebuilt by the Soviets, the Tashkent of today has wide boulevards and spacious parks, and feels uncrowded despite a population of 2.5 million. Our group of 15 gets around easily thanks to an efficient subway system in which every station has a distinctive theme; we’re based at the Central Palace Halal Hotel and nearby Kosmonavtlar station is decorated with portraits of cosmonauts embedded in lustrous tiles that represent the earth’s atmosphere by fading from a deep blue to white.
Our tour around the most accessible of the Central Asian “stans” also takes in Bukhara, a Silk Road pit stop that was largely destroyed when Genghis Khan stormed through with his Mongol hordes. Antiquity’s most feared ruler was so impressed by the 47-metre Kalon Minaret that he ordered it spared and it still looms large over an elaborately decorated mosque complex. It’s a short stroll from the striking monument to the Ark of Bukhara, an imposing fortress of sand-coloured brick. More than 100 mosques, madrasahs, minarets and mausoleums are scattered across the surrounding suburbs.
“During the day Bukhara seems quiet,” Radjabov tells us as he gestures down a deserted street. “But at night it’s like something out of One Thousand and One Nights. Then you’ll hear music and people are eating outside and laughing. That’s when you feel the magic of being in a Central Asian city.”
Leisurely meals of Persian rice, shashlik from Turkey, Chinese-style noodles and flatbread cooked in tandoors provide plenty of time for our group to get acquainted. The diverse cohort includes a 23 year-old archaeologist from England and a couple in their 70s, while two pairs of friends who met on an Intrepid trip in Iceland are travelling in their third continent together. “We’ve been on five Intrepid tours now,” Casey from Pittsburgh tells me. “It’s a great way to visit places you don’t want to travel to on your own – everything is taken care of.”
Although the splendours of the Silk Road are the main attraction for most visitors to Uzbekistan, this tour veers well off the beaten track to include a night in a yurt camp among the red dunes of the Kyzylkum Desert and another at a home stay in the verdant Nuratau Mountains. Driving between them, I get a sense of the country’s scale as we spend hours crossing vast flatlands broken only by shepherds tending flocks of shaggy goats. When a line of green peaks appears abruptly from the plain, it’s as delightful as it is unexpected. The farmhouse where we sleep is flanked by a dozen mulberry trees covered in clouds of white blossoms and a short hike up a secluded valley brings us to a series of petroglyphs that testify to the region’s eons-long habitation. When evening sets in, our hosts demonstrate how to bake bread in a tandoor before teaching us to make Uzbekistan’s national dish. Cooked in a cauldron and eaten communally, plov is a sweet, lightly spiced mix of rice, onions, carrots, chopped meat, cumin and chickpeas. The end result is simple but flavoursome, though, as another guest points out, “It has salt, sugar and oil – of course it’s delicious!”
Leaving the mountains the next day, our resident archaeologist turns to me excitedly. “I can’t get over how much variety we’ve had on this trip. It’s hard to believe we’ve been travelling less than a week.” By the time we enter Samarkand’s Bibi-Khanym Mosque through a monumental 38-metre high entrance portal, even Radjabov is running out of superlatives.
At the bustling Siyob Bazaar adjacent to the mosque, traders beckon me to inspect pyramids of colourful spices, freshly baked bread and sacks overflowing with dried fruits and nuts. Buckets of red strawberries are laid out for inspection next to tubs of sumalak, a thick wheatgrass caramel that’s popular in spring, and several vendors squeeze deliciously tart pomegranate juice right in front of us. “The Silk Road has always been a trade route so the people here are good bargainers,” says Radjabov. “They’re also very kind. We’ve been welcoming travellers here for thousands of years and are very proud of our hospitality.”
