Burnt out, I flew to Uzbekistan and found something I was missing

‘Why connected world are you going there?’

This was the question friends asked erstwhile I told them I was travelling to Uzbekistan, a erstwhile Soviet republic sandwiched betwixt Russia, China, and a host of chap ‘Stans’.

I had galore answers, astir built connected the country’s Silk Road past and the past mystique of a spot that was Central Asia’s cradle of civilization for much than 2 millennia.

But the elemental truth? I was exhausted, burnt retired by the London rat race having moved present from Sydney 2 years ago, and hopeless to reawaken my fascination with the satellite we unrecorded in.

Plus, Uzbekistan was named by Lonely Planet’s Best In Travel usher successful their Top Country class for 2024, with the work describing it arsenic a spot wherever visitors question from ‘oasis to oasis’ portion ‘following the trading networks of centuries past.’

And with its spellbinding architecture, turquoise-tiled cities and spiritual sunsets, Uzbekistan did not disappoint.

Tashkent: City of Soviet hangovers

Our seven-day travel starts with a seven-hour formation to Tashkent, a superior metropolis brimming with Brutalist architecture and hangovers of the USSR era.

Tatiana, the archetypal of 4 guides connected our Silk Road trail, takes america to standout sights specified arsenic Khast Imam Square – which houses what is said to beryllium the world’s oldest Quran – and the bustling Chorsu Bazaar, a large spot to ticker section bakers marque breadstuff successful accepted ovens.

We marvel astatine the façade of Hotel Uzbekistan, a shabby but imposing gathering that erstwhile played big to the apical brass of the Communist regime. Later we halt for a portion astatine Pelikan Craft, a Soviet-style brew store selling IPA and section lager connected tap.

Sipping connected a pint connected 1 of Tashkent’s sprawling boulevards, I americium struck by however incredibly harmless this metropolis of 2.4 cardinal feels. Welcomes are lukewarm successful Uzbekistan, and it’s not agelong earlier we are joined by 3 young locals anxious to signifier their English.

British tourists are fewer and acold betwixt successful Uzbekistan — lone astir 10,000 sojourn each twelvemonth — yet it’s ne'er been easier to get here.

Just a decennary ago, Uzbekistan had a estimation for tricky travel, plagued by analyzable visa rules and corruption. But since the decease of President Islam Karimov successful 2016, getting a visa has been easy. Over 60 nationalities present suffice for 30 days of visa-free travel, including the UK, astir EU countries, New Zealand, Australia, and South Korea.

Uzbekistan is present the astir visited of the Central Asian republics — with bully reason.

Samarkand

If I had immoderate illusions astir Uzbekistan’s modernity, they were rapidly dispelled connected our travel to Samarkand, the biggest drawcard for Silk Road architecture.

We instrumentality the high-speed bid — the remarkably comfortable, Spanish-owned Afrosiyab — which boasts escaped beverage and coffee, and considerably much limb country than Great Western Railway.

Our usher Rukhana meets america astatine the presumption and takes america consecutive to the mausoleum of Amir Timur, a fearsome commandant and nationalist leader who conquered ample swathes of Central Asia successful the 14th century. The hand-tiled mosaics and glittering golden ceilings of the tremendous memorial marque it wide that this antheral was a unit to beryllium reckoned with.

But the main lawsuit successful the Silk Road’s astir celebrated metropolis is Registan, a spectacular quadrate wherever mosques, madarassas and minarets meet. A person of Rukhana’s who stops to accidental hullo turns retired to beryllium the manager of the oldest gathering — and offers america the accidental to ascent a minaret for a bird’s oculus presumption of the square.

The ascent is dizzying, the spectacle captivating, arsenic we look down astatine a country of intricate mosaics and symbols of Zoroastrianism — the past Persian religion that was erstwhile the astir practiced successful Uzbekistan.

If Registan is beauteous by day, it comes live astatine night, erstwhile locals bring their children to devour popcorn and perceive to euphony successful the ethereal glow of the square’s lights. Everyone is beaming; it feels similar it indispensable beryllium a fantastic spot to turn up.

I archer Rukhana astir a caller survey that ranked Uzbekistan the astir miserable country successful the world, and inquire if she thinks it’s true.

‘Young radical present often privation to leave, but they don’t realise that beingness is bully here. Or however hard it tin beryllium abroad, too,’ she says.

A sensation of the Silk Road

The adjacent greeting we’re backmost successful Afrosiyab’s spacious seats for the travel to Bukhara, a smaller and much intensely Islamic metropolis 270km northwest.

Our 2 nights present are spent successful a edifice successful the Jewish 4th of the aged city, which is built astir a bid of wells and caravaranserais, roadside inns on large trading routes connected the Silk Road wherever merchants stopped for food, rest, and gossip.

Centuries aged trading domes inactive supply shadiness for travellers browsing handwoven silk scarves and and suzani (embroidered textiles) stitched with pomegranates — symbols of fertility.

I astir bargain a accepted titanium weapon with an exquisite parent of pearl handle, earlier the planetary customs jitters get the amended of me.

The champion nutrient of our travel was served astatine a Bukhara suzani maker’s house, wherever we dined connected cauldrons of plov – a rice-based crockery topped with beef oregon lamb, raisins and yellowish carrots – and samsa, a savoury pastry packed with meat, which our usher Rimma described arsenic Uzbekistan’s McDonald’s.

The aureate arches haven’t made it to this portion of Central Asia conscionable yet (but they bash person Wendy’s, and precocious celebrated the opening of the archetypal KFC).

There’s nary uncertainty that eating successful this portion of the satellite is simply a small trickier for vegans and vegetarians, but the Uzbeks cognize however to marque a crockery — they besides turn the juiciest tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. So don’t fto the meat-heavy paper deter you.

‘Spellbinding’ Khiva

On the seven-hour thrust to Khiva, we whizzed past sights that person mostly vanished from occidental countries.

Women hoe the fields, a kaleidoscope of headscarves fluttering successful the breeze down them. Single cows thrust on connected pickup trucks, their dense rubber wheels disrupting godforsaken soil that looks similar a oversea of brownish sugar.

Stacks of hay bales teeter perilously connected apical of cartoonish Damas vans. Our driver, Rahman, tells america they are known arsenic ‘loaves’, for their bread-like shape.

Seven hours successful the backmost of a Chevrolet feels unthinkable successful the UK, but our travel done the Kyzylkum godforsaken is amazingly painless.

We get successful our 2,700-year-old destination conscionable successful clip to locomotion the aged metropolis walls astatine sunset, a genuinely magical acquisition that astir brings a teardrop to my eye.

The Independent’s Simon Calder called Khiva 1 of the astir astonishing places connected earth’ — and he’s truly not exaggerating.

This past metropolis whitethorn beryllium famed for its astonishing Islamic architecture, but it inactive has plentifulness of large places to enactment and eat, from rooftop terraces overlooking magnificent blue-domed mosques to cafes nestled nether towering minarets.

We walk our last 2 days cocooned wrong the 4 walls of Khiva, exploring ornate madrassas wherever mathematical theories were archetypal discovered and mosques supported by 1,000-year-old woody beams.

Our last day is spent awestruck by a household of section acrobats who locomotion a tightrope, 1 connected apical of another.

As the prima sets connected our clip successful Central Asia, we stock a portion with a radical of six friends successful their 60s who we support bumping into on the Silk Road path.

‘People said to me, wherefore the hellhole are you going there,’ 1 tells maine implicit a solid of Saperavi wine. ‘Well wherefore the hellhole wouldn’t you travel here?’

I couldn’t hold more.

Alice Murphy was a impermanent of Trotting Soles (+44 (0) 7553 709314; [email protected]). One-week backstage tour, with modular accommodation, interior question and guided sightseeing starts from £1,300 per idiosyncratic (based connected 2 travellers), oregon £2,700 for the aforesaid bundle with luxury accommodation and transport.

Uzbekistan Airways flies nonstop from London to Tashkent from £503; Turkish Airways flies with 1 stopover successful Istanbul from £623.

This nonfiction was primitively published connected April 28 2024.

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