The captivating country of art, Silk Road history and striking architecture

For a minute, I think I’ve lost my group. I’m regaining focus after being distracted by racks of shawls and jackets. The sound of my tour party comrades gasping in awe, coupled with an enticing smell, leads me straight to them. I weave between the frenetic, rolling trolleys and carts that are piled high with obi non, a round Uzbek bread, and meander into the bakehouse, which gets incrementally warmer with every step. There are two huge stoves blazing. Each is manned by a team of four bakers who, tightly synchronised like dancers, spin the dough, press it into shape, glide it into the huge furnace oven and fish it out. (Photo: TUNART/Getty)

Chorsu Bazar

Once you’ve eaten a fluffy cloud of fresh obi non from the fires of Chorsu Bazaar – the largest food market in Tashkent, the capital of the Central Asian country Uzbekistan – all other breads pale in comparison. Chorsu Bazar was built in 1980 on a former crossroads, but it is a grand sight with a dome covered in blue and green tiles that shimmer in the sun. Food, silks and spices have been sold in this area for over 2,000 years. I’m on a group tour with seven other travellers, with an age range of 20-something to 50-something. Some have flown in from the far reaches of North America and Asia to join a trip run by tour operator Exodus Adventure Travels. (Photo: Ibrahim Erikan/Anadolu Agency via Getty)

Direct flights from major UK airports

In 2024, Uzbekistan Airways launched direct flights from London Gatwick and London Heathrow airports to Tashkent, which has boosted UK custom for the tour operator’s Uzbekistan itineraries. Tom Manchester, product manager and programme expert at Exodus Adventure Travels, says: “Our 2024 passenger numbers for the region were up 45 per cent versus 2023. Many of our Silk Road trips ran fully booked in 2024. The history of the Silk Road, particularly through trips to Uzbekistan, is appealing to more and more people,” he adds. “We’ve added extra departures for 2025 in the peak months and these are already booking up.” (Photo: Steve Parsons/PA)

Ancient and modern Islamic design

As an architecture enthusiast, I’ve been keen to visit Uzbekistan – a country filled with ancient and modern Islamic design – since I was a student. But it was reading Peter Frankopan’s The Silk Roads: A New History of the World a few years ago that reignited my interest. The idea of a solo trip around this less-trodden country always felt a bit overwhelming, so a guided group tour was a welcome alternative. (Photo: Marc Dozier/Getty/The Image Bank RF)

Artistic highlights

Early the next morning, after our time in Tashkent, we bundle down to Nukus – one of the remotest cities in Central Asia and the capital of Uzbekistan’s autonomous republic Karakalpaksta. The arid Kyzylkum desert air is a stark contrast to autumnal Tashkent’s wide leafy boulevards. Later that day, I’m looking at Kandinsky paintings at the “Uzbekistan: Avante-Garde in the Desert” exhibition (on until February) at the Savitsky Museum. The museum is best known for its rare, permanent collection of Russian and Uzbek Avante Garde paintings from the 20th century that were censored by the USSR, but saved and protected by the museum’s founder Igor Savitsky, at risk to his own life. A popular work that draws visitors is “The Bull (Fascism Advances)”, by Vladimir Lysenko (pictured), which was taken down and hidden the day that Communist inspectors visited in the remote gallery in the 1980s. I have a chat about Kandinsky’s synesthesia with museum guide Albena Sadenova. She says: “Year on year more Europeans come to Nukus to see our museum.” The institution welcomed half a million visitors between January and September 2024. (Credit: Martyn Kent)

Khiva

From Nukus, we are driven through the desert to Khiva, an ancient walled town. The madrasas (Islamic educational institutions), mausoleums and mosques are stunning, but it’s the Kalta Minor minaret that I cannot stop staring at. This memorial minaret was created in the mid 1800s. The layers of majolica tiles in geometric patterns that coat this unfinished tower have become the emblem of Khiva. Between the turquoise and sandy ocre buildings, its busy squares and artery roads teem with life. In Khiva’s old town centre, residents outnumber tourists. Tourism is a source of business, however. Crafts people and vendors sell their textiles, paintings and woodwork in stalls and markets, while their children ride tricycles around my legs. At lunch, I have my first manti (pumpkin or meat steamed dumplings), which are a steal at £2/US$2.71 for a plate of eight. I order them every day for the rest of the trip. To the east of Khiva’s old town, a plaza of new hotels lines the station area. The railway line from Tashkent was opened here in 2018. It’s developments like this that have allowed Uzbekistan’s tourism industry to expand. “We have had tourists coming since the 60s,” says our guide, Rimma Khusinova. She’s been leading trips for decades. “People from Europe and North America came on package tours to the USSR to see Central Asia, but now they’re coming specifically to see Uzbekistan,” she says. (Photo: 2004 Leisa Tyler/Getty)

Bukhara

Rimma is from Bukhara, our next stop. She takes us to a family home for a cooking lesson, where matriarch Nellya Khamraeva shows us how to make the rice dish plov (Rimma translates her instructions). We dig in once the steaming plates – topped with meat and raisins – are brought to our table. Later, Rimma takes us to paint plates in a ceramics studio. We wouldn’t have known where to find either activity without her expertise. For the last leg of the tour, we take a high-speed train east to Samarkand, which is easily the most impressive (and busiest) place we’ve been in the country. (Photo: Mlenny/E+ via Getty)

Travel information

Getting there: Uzbekistan Airways offers direct flights to Tashkent from Gatwick and Heathrow. Turkish Airways has a “Stopover in Istanbul” program, which includes a free night of accommodation for one leg of the return trip from the UK to Tashkent. / Booking it: The writer was a guest of Exodus Adventure Travels. Its 15-day Uzbekistan Uncovered trip starts from £2,599pp, excluding flights and including B&B accommodation, all additional listed meals, transport and activities, and a local tour leader throughout. Departures throughout 2025. (Photo: Martyn Kent)