Historic Sites in Uzbekistan

The Registan is the most famous square in Central Asia: three tiled madrasas built between the 1420s and 1660s facing each other across a paved court. Ten minutes’ walk away, Gur-e Amir holds Timur himself under a slab of dark green jade, alongside his grandson, the astronomer-king Ulugh Beg, beneath a ribbed blue dome. Shah-i-Zinda is a lane of some twenty mausoleums climbing a hill, the finest tilework in the country, and still a place of pilgrimage.

North-east of the centre, the grassy mounds of Afrasiyab are the site of pre-Mongol Samarkand. The Afrasiab Museum on site shows 7th-century wall paintings of ambassadors arriving at the court, and the remains of Ulugh Beg’s observatory, a huge curved sextant cut into the rock, stand nearby. The Bibi-Khanym Mosque is on our mosques page. Allow two full days.

The historic centre of Bukhara is the most complete medieval city in Central Asia, best explored on foot over two or three days. Start at the Lyab-i Hauz pool and its madrasas, walk through the domed trading bazaars to the Poi Kalyan ensemble under the Kalyan Minaret, then to the Ark, the fortress of the emirs, with its museums.

In the park to the west, the Samanid Mausoleum, built in the early 10th century, is a small cube of brick laid in basket-weave patterns, among the oldest Islamic buildings in Central Asia. Next to it, Chashma-Ayub covers a spring linked to the prophet Job and houses a small water museum. A taxi ride west of town brings you to Chor-Bakr, a quiet necropolis of the 16th century, and the emir’s summer palace, Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa. Archaeology fans can also visit the ruined trading town of Paykend and the palace site of Varakhsha in the desert.

Itchan Kala, the inner town of Khiva, is enclosed by mud-brick walls about 10 m high and small enough to walk across in fifteen minutes, yet packed with madrasas, palaces, minarets and the city’s mosques. Landmarks include the stubby turquoise Kalta Minor, left unfinished in the 1850s, the Islam Khoja minaret, the tallest in town, the Kunya Ark fortress and the tiled harem courtyard of Tash Hauli palace. One combined ticket covers most of the monuments, with a few sites charged separately. Stay inside the walls to see it at dawn and dusk without the day-trippers.

North of Khiva, across the Amu Darya in Karakalpakstan, dozens of clay fortresses from the ancient kingdom of Khorezm rise out of the desert. Ayaz-Kala is the most dramatic, a fortress on a hilltop with a yurt camp below where you can stay the night. Toprak-Kala was a royal residence with a palace whose wall paintings now sit in museums. Visit with a driver from Khiva or Urgench in a full day, or continue to Nukus. There is no shade, so start early in summer.

Shahrisabz, Timur’s home town, is a day trip from Samarkand over the mountains. The surviving fragments of the gate of his Ak-Saray Palace still tower over the town, and nearby are the Kok Gumbaz mosque and the empty crypt Timur prepared for himself.

Further south, Termez on the Afghan border was a Buddhist centre under the Kushan empire. Fayaz Tepe is a monastery with a restored stupa, and Kara Tepe and the Zurmala stupa are nearby. North of Termez, Dalverzin Tepe and Khalchayan near Denov are Kushan towns whose sculptures fill museums in Tashkent and Termez.

Most monuments open from about 8am or 9am to 6pm or 7pm, later in summer. Foreigners pay a separate, higher ticket at most sites, about 50,000 to 100,000 som (roughly $4 to $8) at the main Samarkand sites and about 250,000 som for Khiva’s combined ticket, with combined tickets in Khiva and for the Registan; extra charges apply for photography at a few places. Card payment is spreading but carry som for smaller sites. Local guides wait at the main gates, and a guide adds a lot at Shah-i-Zinda and the Ark.

Book the Afrosiyob trains between Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara ahead in spring and autumn, when they sell out. For background on Timur and the Silk Road, see our first-timer’s guide, and for mountains and lakes, see national parks.