Central Asia · Uzbekistan & Beyond
"Places that feel genuinely discovered."
Samarkand to Khiva. Ancient cities that still have no tourist version. The trip for the traveler who has done everywhere obvious and wants the places that require a little more knowing.
Uzbekistan · Georgia · Central Asia
Samarkand was a metropolis when London was a mudflat. Khiva has been continuously inhabited for five thousand years. The context changes everything you see.
Registan Square, Samarkand
KODAK PORTRA 400 · 31 ▶
Field Notes
"Samarkand at dusk. The tiles turn from blue to gold to something with no name. I have been standing here for an hour. So have most people."
KODAK PORTRA 400 · 32 ▶
Caravanserai courtyard, Bukhara
Five moments on the Silk Road
Registan Square at dusk
Three madrasas — Ulugh Beg, Tilya-Kori, Sher-Dor — enclosing a square that has been the commercial and political centre of Central Asia for six centuries. In the last hour of daylight the tiles shift through colours that have no satisfactory names in English. Arrive without a tour group if at all possible. The architecture deserves the quiet.
Tea in a Bukhara courtyard
Bukhara is the more intimate city — less restored, more inhabited, full of madrasas that are still used as madrasas. Find a teahouse in the old town (not the tourist strip), order green tea and non bread, and sit with the fact that this city was already old when Alexander the Great arrived in 329 BC. Very little has been built since the Soviets left.
Khiva at dawn
The most intact medieval Central Asian city in existence — five thousand years old, and walled. At dawn, before the tour groups from Urgench arrive, you walk the mud-brick lanes with almost no company. The Kalta Minor minaret, never finished, covered in turquoise tiles, catches the first light. It looks nothing like anywhere else on earth.
The Kyzylkum crossing
The red sand desert between Bukhara and Khiva. Some operators offer the camel-track route rather than the road — two or three days with a nomadic guide, saxaul trees, and star fields of a density that implies you've never actually seen stars before. Not comfortable. Not optional, once you know it exists.
The craftsmen of the old city
Silk weaving in Margilan, coppersmithing in Bukhara, papier-mâché painting in Samarkand — the crafts that made the Silk Road the Silk Road are still here, still practiced, still taught between generations. Find them through a local guide, not a curated craft centre. Watch. Buy from the maker. This is how the chain survives.