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BBC News
22-07-2025
- BBC News
The fertile Silk Road valley few travellers know
In recent years, Uzbekistan has embarked on an ambitious nationwide tourism boom that is transforming much of the country. But its beating heart is in a stunning and largely secluded valley. It's dawn in Tashkent when the hulking Soviet-era train groans into the station and shudders to a halt. I've taken several crowded trains across Uzbekistan by now, but this one, bound for the eastern city of Margilan – the gateway to the Fergana Valley – is devoid of foreign travellers. Inside, I sit beside a family of three. The matriarch, Gulnora, wears a striking headscarf patterned in bold geometric motifs. I point to it and say, "Ajoyib!", the Uzbek word for "great". She smiles and tells me she got it from the valley we're headed towards. The day before, at Tashkent's blue-domed Chorsu Bazaar – one of Central Asia's oldest markets – I came across a mound of strawberries. Though small in size, they tasted like bursts of spring. Sticky-fingered, I asked the vendor through Google Translate, "Where are these grown?" He immediately answered, "Fergana." On the train, I offer the last of my strawberries to the family. Gulnora smiles again and opens her own box in response. Inside is a rainbow of fresh and dried fruit: mulberries, apricots, apples, oranges and strawberries, all coming from the valley. She then pulls out a small ceramic quarter plate and arranges a small feast for us. Cradled between the Tien Shan and Alay mountain ranges, the Fergana Valley stretches across eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. It is one of Central Asia's most fertile regions; this lush intermountain basin, irrigated by the Naryn and Kara Darya rivers, has nurtured both crops and culture for centuries. It is also the birthplace of Uzbekistan's celebrated silk, ceramic and fruit production – a veritable holy trinity that forms the backbone of Uzbek culture. Like much of modern-day Uzbekistan, the Fergana Valley lay along the fabled Silk Road, serving as a conduit for trade, ideas and artistry between China, Persia and the Mediterranean for centuries. In recent years, Uzbekistan has been leaning into its Silk Road roots with an ambitious new tourism drive that is seeing its historical trading hubs of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva developing at breakneck speeds. But while relaxed visa restrictions, more connecting flights and the arrival of the nation's first major international biennial has placed Uzbekistan on more travellers' radars, critics point out that its flashy recreations of traditional Uzbek culture run the risk of turning it into a veritable Silk Road theme park. Yet, away from the nation's sanitised new resorts and ersatz "ethnographic parks", a quieter cultural revival is unfolding in the Fergana Valley. This traditional hub of Uzbek culture receives only a fraction of the visitors who flock to Uzbekistan's major cities, but it remains a living museum of craftsmanship. Ikat textiles from Margilan, one of the valley's oldest cities, are worn across Uzbekistan as skullcaps, headscarves and modern shirts and dresses. Meanwhile, ceramics from Rishtan are used in households across the country to serve food and tea. Fruit from the valley is a staple of Uzbek hospitality and cuisine, with dried apricots and raisins served alongside tea and pomegranates and cherries mixed into plov, Uzbekistan's national dish. I put my hand on my heart, as many Uzbeks do, to thank Gulnora for her company on the train, and disembark in Margilan to find my guesthouse. Appropriately named Ikathouse, it is lined with traditional wooden divans draped in vibrant ikat textiles. I soon learn that the property belongs to the family of Rasuljon Mirzaahmedov, a fifth-generation ikat weaver who has collaborated with fashion designer Oscar de la Renta to create a collection featuring Fergana's signature adras (cotton-silk blend), atlas (satin ikat) and baghmal (velvet ikat). More like this:• Khiva: The Silk Road City most tourists miss• The dark side of Uzbekistan's tourism boom• Life in Karakalpakstan: The 'stan within a stan' Margilan is the birthplace of Uzbek ikat, one of Central Asia's most complex textile traditions. Known locally as abrbandi, this silk-weaving tradition stretches back 1,000 years and was plied along the Silk Road as early as the 11th Century. While the ikat technique came to Uzbekistan after the Arab Conquest in the 7th Century, legend has it that Uzbekistan's long love of silk began in the 4th Century when a Chinese princess smuggled silkworm eggs in her hair when she eloped to the Fergana Valley. Unlike other places in Uzbekistan today, the labour-intensive weaving in Margilan is still done by hand. At Yodgorlik, one of the city's oldest silk factories, silkworms munch steadily through piles of tender mulberry leaves, growing fat until they spin delicate cocoons of raw silk. "We only use cocoons that the larvae have left behind," explains Luiza Kamolova, Yodgorlik's director. "If we kill the larvae, we kill the future of Uzbekistan's silk." The silk is then washed, stretched and tightly bundled into skeins and resist-dyed in successive stages with natural pigments: onion skins for yellow, madder roots for red, indigo leaves for blue and pomegranate skins for brown. Artisans bend and sweat over massive steaming cauldrons all day, coaxing colour into thread to build intricate patterns that emerge only after the fabric is woven. The result is a delicate, feathered blur that is worn across Uzbekistan in both traditional and contemporary fashion. "If you think of Uzbek ikat, you think of Fergana Valley," says Charos Kamalova, founder of Teplo, a marketplace in Tashkent that showcases designers from across the nation. "Every designer working with traditional textiles uses fabrics from the region. It is just a given." At Yodgorlik, a blue-and-white silk scarf is drying in the courtyard. "It is inspired by the colours of the Rishtan ceramics," an artisan tells me. "Have you been there yet?" Two days later, I am welcomed to the city of Rishtan by a giant ceramic pot standing in the centre of a roundabout. According to locals, the sculpture is inspired by a local four-handled pitcher called bodiya chuqur bodiya used across Uzbekistan to boil water for tea. At Koron, a nearby ceramic showroom, I wander through rows of vibrant pottery: bowls, tiles, jugs and glazed pomegranates in every shade and size. "The pomegranate is sacred in Uzbekistan," says Ravshan Tojiddinov, Koron's founder. "We give it at weddings for fertility, paint it on ceramics for good luck and eat it to remember that life is both sweet and sharp!" At Rustam Usmanov's workshop – the part studio, part school of one of Uzbekistan's most respected potters – I watch students sketch patterns beside stacks of half-finished vessels. "The clay we use in Rishtan has a natural reddish-yellow hue." Usmanov explains. "The entire city is quite literally built on it." This local clay is shaped and dried for up to 10 days, coated with white clay and then fired at 920C. Intricate plant-based motifs are then hand-painted before a second firing at 960-1000C locks in the alkaline glaze, revealing the intense blue tint that makes Uzbek pottery so distinct. "Every Rishtan ceramic tells a story," one of Usmanov's students tells me. "Birds are for freedom, fruits for abundance, and the jug – for water, milk, wine – is life itself. These are not just decorations, they are blessings entering the Uzbek household." Usmanov sees me photographing a yet-to-mature pomegranate hanging from a tree in his workshop's courtyard. He offers me some dried apricots, walnuts and apples, before echoing what Gulnora and so many others have told me: that the nearby city of Fergana boasts some of nation's best fruit. Hopping out of a marshrutka (shared minibus) at Fergana, the valley's namesake city, I see fruit trees everywhere. Grapevines climb across mudbrick homes, cherries droop from overhanging branches and small apricot trees bloom in courtyards. On street corners, I see locals rinsing strawberries in communal basins, children chasing runaway plums down alleys and old women shaking mulberry trees to collect the berries for jam. At the farmer's market, the offerings are dazzling: rows of sun-blushed peaches, crisp apples stacked like pyramids, purple grapes heavy on the vine and baskets of strawberries so fragrant they perfume the air. "Everything you see here was picked this morning," says a local vendor. "We grow for our families first, then the market, then whatever is left is sold for export." Thanks to the valley's rich alluvial soils and long sunlit days, Fergana's strawberries, cherries, apples and pomegranates develop a natural sweetness and fragrance that is difficult to replicate, making Uzbekistan the top fruit-producing nation in Central Asia. As I prepare to leave the valley, a small moment crystallises everything I have seen and tasted. At a roadside stall just outside the Margilan train station, an elderly woman wearing a dazzling ikat headscarf is selling freshly picked mulberries in gold-rimmed ceramic bowls, their juice staining the curved blue glaze. In that instant, I see how seamlessly Uzbekistan's holy trinity weaves itself into everyday life here. In the Fergana Valley, ikat is more than a machine-made costume worn for photos in front of the glittering new Silk Road Samarkand; ceramics are more than just souvenirs to shelve back home; and fruit is more than a welcome platter at a new caravanserai-style hotel in Bukhara. In a world speeding towards curated visuals and surface-level experiences for tourists, Fergana feels like an antidote — and that's what makes it well worth the detour. -- For more Travel stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Cosmic metros, UFO circus tops and a 3,000C sun gun: the mesmerising architecture of Tashkent
A pair of huge turquoise domes swell up on the skyline of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, perching on the jumbled horizon like two upturned bowls. One gleams with ceramic tiles, glazed in traditional Uzbek patterns. The other catches the light with a pleated canopy of azure metal ribs. Both recall the majestic cupolas that crown the mosques of the country's ancient Silk Road cities of Samarkand, Khiva and Bukhara. But here, they cover structures of a very different kind. The ribbed metal dome crowns the home of the state circus, its futuristic-looking big top seeming to have been crossed with a UFO. Built in 1976, it's big enough to hold an audience of 3,000. The ceramic dome, meanwhile, looms over the bustling chaos of the city's main market, Chorsu Bazaar, built in 1980 as a wonderworld of fruit, meat and fish, sprawling across an area the size of two football pitches. Both are dazzling works of Soviet modernism, and part of a remarkable group of buildings that the country has just submitted to Unesco, in the hope of having them granted world heritage status. 'People tend to think of Uzbek heritage as our ancient Islamic monuments,' says Gayane Umerova, chair of the country's Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF). 'But we need to realise that we are in danger of losing the more recent layers of history, due to urban development. We have to act now.' Over the last few years, the ACDF has been highlighting Tashkent's unique postwar heritage, hosting conferences, commissioning expert research, and now publishing two hefty books about the period, as well as putting the topic in the global spotlight with an exhibition at the Venice architecture biennale, opening shortly. This push was triggered in 2018, following a public outcry over the demolition of a beloved cylindrical concrete movie theatre, the House of Cinema, built in 1982. It was hastily bulldozed to make way for a $1.3bn commercial development, a bloated cluster of generic glass towers known as Tashkent City. 'It was a big loss for our society,' says Umerova. 'It wasn't just about the building –people had grown up with the cinema as a place to go on dates, see friends, hang out. Its sudden loss made us look at what else might be in danger.' In the line of fire, potentially, is one of the most unusual collections of modernist buildings anywhere in the world. About 2,000 miles from Moscow, Tashkent occupies a fascinating position in the history of the Soviet Union as a showcase city, bridging east and west. It was designated a 'beacon of socialism in the east', conceived as a vast vitrine to display the successful socialist transformation of a non-Russian city. Its image of prosperity, abundance, leisure and progress would show how communism could be adapted to the diverse, far-flung populations of Central Asia – and therefore to the rest of the world. An earthquake in 1966 provided a convenient excuse to raze much of the historic city and impose a masterplan of wide avenues dotted with grand, orientalist structures that would speak of Tashkent's new role as the modern gateway to Asia. The buildings are a fascinating mix, combining the latest technologies and construction techniques of international modernism with ornamental details that hark back to the 15th-century architecture of the Timurid dynasty. That became adopted as the official national style, and remains so to this day, despite it being of little historic relevance to Tashkent. 'Interestingly, the buildings designed for Tashkent in Moscow were much more decorative and 'orientalist' than those designed locally,' says Ekaterina Golovatyuk, a Russian architect whose Milan-based practice Grace has been leading the preservation strategy. 'It was like they were trying to present an imaginary, exoticised image of Tashkent back to local people.' She is standing outside the former Lenin Museum, now the state history museum, a gleaming white marble jewellery box. Wrapped with supersized latticework screens, it appears to float above a recessed glass lobby on a hidden steel frame. The building was created in 1970 by the snappily titled Central Scientific Research and Experimental Project Institute for Entertainment and Sport, an elite Moscow bureau that delivered prestige projects across the USSR. Despite the bold modernist form, its design consciously draws on tradition, with the geometric screens referencing vernacular Uzbek panjara, or latticework grilles that provide shading and ventilation, as well as Islamic patterns (a fact not mentioned at the time). 'The design was criticised locally for being superficial,' says Golovatyuk. 'But it launched a new direction. Gradually, this would become the language of modernist Tashkent.' The domed circus is a striking example of how these aesthetic attitudes evolved. It was first drawn up in the early 1960s, by architects Genrikh Aleksandrovich and Gennady Masyagin, as a brutalist flying saucer, studded with porthole windows. Construction began in 1965, but was halted by the earthquake. As time went on, the space-age design became historicised, clothed in traditional fancy dress. The inspiration was no longer a UFO, but an Uzbek piala, or teacup. Decorative concrete sunshades were added, in a form that echoed ancient Kufic script. The interior is a surreal mashup, where concentric cosmic rays radiating from the doorways became encrusted with traditional ornamentation, like a spaceship decked out in chintzy wallpaper. Other experiments to celebrate the regional context focused less on decoration than on local typologies. One of the most radical projects of the era is the Zhemchug (or Pearl) housing block, designed as a vertical expression of the traditional mahalla courtyard homes. Built in 1985, the 16-storey tower features a pair of communal courtyards every three storeys, providing space for children to play, while elderly residents sit out playing chess and drinking tea. Front doors are reached via outdoor galleries that look down into these back yards in the sky. 'I love its uniqueness,' says Dilara, who has lived here for decades. 'We've used the courtyards for weddings, barbecues and drinking beer together. There is a strong sense of community.' A rooftop swimming pool, now a pond, was added to increase stability in the event of an earthquake. It is surrounded by mushroom-shaped sunshades that double as ventilation for all the kitchens down below. Sadly, this inventive design didn't take off. 'It was the first building in Uzbekistan to use sliding concrete formwork,' says Golovatyuk, referring to a system where the moulds are moved up while concrete is poured continuously. 'It was supposed to be cheaper and faster, but it turned out to be slower and much more expensive.' Still, its occupants seem to love it. They've even curated a little exhibition about its female architect, Ophelia Aydinova, in the lobby. Cost may have deterred any repeat, but money was no object when it came to symbols of national pride. As the planned economy began to falter in the 1980s, the baubles of Soviet pomp became ever grander. As Golovatyuk puts it: 'When a regime isn't doing so well, the need for representation gets even bigger.' She is standing outside a prime example, the gargantuan Palace of People's Friendship. Unveiled in 1981, its ornate hall seats over 4,000 in a pharaonic temple of culture, dripping with gilded ceramics and crystal chandeliers. Designed by the team behind the Lenin Museum, led by Yevgeny Rozanov and Elena Sukhanova, it is a tour de force of Uzbek modernism. Raised on a plinth, the museum is wrapped in a muscular facade of panjara-inspired grille-work, crowned with a colossal frieze of abstract muqarnas, the sculptural stalactite motifs found inside the domes and niches of Islamic architecture. Inside, the ceiling of its triple-height atrium groans with pearly chandeliers, evoking dangling branches of cotton bolls, while the walls are lined with fluted blue tiles and expressionistic ceramic sculptures by Alexander Kedrin. The floors, meanwhile, writhe with geometric marquetry. It has the look of an immense marble Transformer, seemingly about to unfold into a great robotic creature and march towards the circus. There are more wonders dotted throughout the city, beautifully photographed by Karel Balas for a Rizzoli coffee-table book, and meticulously examined in a 900-page tome for Lars Müller, with pictures by Armin Linke. The metro system is a particular treat, especially Kosmonavtlar (or Cosmonauts) station, built in 1984 as a cosmic fantasy of blue tiled walls, green glass columns and celestial light fittings, evoking the wonders of space exploration. Perhaps the most spectacular of all lies an hour outside the city, perched on a hillside in Parkent. Looking like something dreamed up by a Bond villain, the Sun Heliocomplex is an astonishing sight, a 20-storey convex cliff of mirrors, able to channel the sun's energy to a temperature of 3,000C. Completed in 1987, it was designed to test the resistance of materials to nuclear explosion and develop heatproof ceramics for the Soviet military. Since the collapse of the USSR, it has hobbled along, working with agriculture, textile and mining industries. Although it was a classified project, off-limits to most, it was intended as a showcase of applied arts, featuring sculptural ceramic screens and dazzling planetary chandeliers by artist Irena Lipene. A seven-tonne example will be shown in Venice, capturing in crystal the end-of-the-world glamour of the nuclear age. Sergo Sutyagin, a leading Uzbek architect, hailed this 'cosmic architecture', praising how it 'poetically and fantastically emerges' from the hillside, 'prompting philosophical reflections on the reality of the unreal, on the possibility of the impossible'. The space race having moved elsewhere, you can now visit the complex and harness the immense power of the sun to boil a kettle or fry an egg. Tashkent: A Modernist Capital is out now
