Uzbekistan Tourism

Uzbekistan is a country with potential for an expanded tourism industry. Many of its Central Asian cities were main points of trade on the Silk Road, linking Eastern and Western civilizations. Today the museums of Uzbekistan store over two million artifacts, evidence of the unique historical, cultural and spiritual life of the Central Asian peoples that have lived in the region. Uzbekistan attracts tourists with its historical, archeological, architectural and natural treasures.

Tourism Demand

International visitation to the Republic of Uzbekistan has maintained consistent growth in arrivals over the past five years, increasing from 1.2 million international visitors in 2009 to 2 million in 2013 (Republic of Uzbekistan, 2014; UNWTO, 2014). The majority (91%) of these tourists originated from neighboring CIS countries and were travelling for the purposes of visiting friends and relatives. Here are compare tourists of Uzbekistan to others country’s tourist in 2013: 

Country	Tourist
Uzbekistan	154,845
Russia	28,255
Turkey	18,424
India	16,135
Germany	7881
Korea	11,908

Popular tourist places in Uzbekistan

1. Tashkent Cities :

Tashkent is the capital of Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan’s largest city (population 2,400,000) is also Central Asia’s largest city and its main transportation hub. At present, Tashkent is one of the most important business centers in Central Asia. Present-day Tashkent is one of the most beautiful cities in Asia, and its architecture is unique; the hospitality and friendliness of Tashkent people is amazing.The city is more than 2200 years old, and has evolved from a small ancient settlement to the one of the largest metropolitan areas in the region.

The city is host to Embassies and consulates of many countries of the world, and is known among travelers as a great place to stay and arrange visa and trips throughout the region; Tashkent lies right on the border with Kazakhstan and also is known as the main “gates of the Orient” on international air routes from India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China to Europe. 

The city of Tashkent is located within Tashkent Region, which lies in the far northeastern corner of Uzbekistan, near the border with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Its area covers 15,300 sq. km; 10% percent of the total population of Uzbekistan lives in the Tashkent Region. The majority are Uzbeks, but more than 90 other nationalities also live here, primarily Russians, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Kyrgyz, and ethnic Koreans. The average population density is more than 146 persons per sq. km.

The Tashkent Region consists of 15 districts, 16 towns, 17 settlement, and 147 kishlak (villages) councils. It is situated between the western slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains and the Syrdarya River.

Some Historical Infrastructure or Monuments which are situated in 16^th century of Tashkent Cities are:

• Kukeldash Madrassah.
• Barak-Khan Madrassah complex.
• Suyunige-Khan.
• Khaffal Shashi Mausoleums.
• Kaldyrgach-Biya Mausoleums.

• Andijan Cities :

Andijan is a city and administrative center in far eastern Uzbekistan in Andijan province, is situated in the Southeast of the Ferghana Valley and is surrounded by high mountains and hills. Andijan is about 475 km east of Tashkent, and about 45 km west of Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Andijan is a center of oil production and has a few oil refineries. Cotton growing and processing remain the dominant economic activities.

The history of the city goes back to the 9th century AD. In ancient times the Great Silk Road passed through this town, which was known as the eastern gate of the Ferghana Valley. In the 10^thcentury Andijan was the part of the Samanids Empire. In 1483 Zaheruddin Babur was born here, and Andijan became the capital of the Ferghana State and its major Silk Road trading center. Later Babur had to go to Afghanistan and he ruled Kabul for two decades, then in 1526 he marched into Delhi and founded the Mughal Empire in India. The dynasty of the Babur’s had ruled India for more than 300 years.

In the 18^thand 19^thcc. Andijan was a part of the Kokand khanate (state) was centered in present-day Kokand. In 1876 Andijan was captured by Russian forces.

The Fergana Valley’s last local rebellion against the rule of the Russian Tsar took place at Andijan in 1898. An earthquake destroyed most of the old part of the city in 1902, killing more than 4000 people.

The Babur Literary Museum – is situated behind the bazaar, occupying the site of the royal apartments, where Babur lived and studied in Ark-Ichi, the town’s citadel that exists no more. The museum opened in 1989 on the site of his residence, in celebration of the 460th year of publication of his autobiography entitled Baburname, published in English as the Memoirs of Babur. Andijan also has teacher-training, medical, and cotton-growing institutes.

Historical and architectural monuments of Andijan

• Juma Mosque and Madrassah – built in the 19th century, is said to be the only building to survive the 1902 earthquake;
• Home of Akhmadbek-hadja (early 20thc.)

• Aral Sea :

Millions of years ago, the northwestern part of Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan were covered by a massive inland sea. When the waters receded, they left a broad plain of highly saline soil. One of the remnants of the ancient sea was the Aral Sea, the fourth largest inland body of water in the world.

The Aral is an inland salt-water sea with no outlet. It is fed by two rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. The fresh water from these two rivers held the Aral’s water and salt levels in perfect balance.

In the early 1960’s, the Soviet central government decided to make the Soviet Union self-sufficient in cotton and increase rice production. Government officials ordered the additional amount of needed water to be taken from the two rivers that feed the Aral Sea.Large dams were built across both rivers, and an 850-mile central canal with a far-reaching system of “feeder” canals was created. When the irrigation system was completed, millions of acres along both sides of the main canal were flooded.

At first, they assumed it was a temporary condition and dredged a canal to the receding shore so boats could continue to ply the sea and still dock at the wharves. But the effluents that did reach the sea were laced with a deadly mix of salt and pesticides from the cotton fields. Fish populations plummeted and eventually, when the canal was 30 km long and the sea continued to move away, the boats were abandoned to lie like great leviathans on sands that were once sea bottom.

• Baisun :

South of Shakhrisabz, in the Surkhandarya province, along the ancient trade route of the Great Silk Road, hidden away in a beautiful valley, lays Baisun, an area on its way to becoming a household name among the culturally aware in Uzbekistan and Central Asia. Recently, Baisun was listed on the Unesco List of world heritage sites. It was in the Baisuntau Mountains that early man developed during the Palaeolithic era.

Finds from cave sites in the area and rock paintings of prehistoric hunters are on display at a number of museums, especially at the newly opened Museum in Termez. An important festival of folk music and avant-garde fashion based on traditional costumes is held in Baisun, which may well become the next big cultural destination in Uzbekistan.

Unique to the Kashkadarya region is the village Jaynau Kazan. Its inhabitants are of direct Arabian descent, and to the present day have preserved their Arabic language and the custom and traditions inherited from their ancestors.

• Bukhara :

Bukhara is an ancient settlement with a history that goes back to the early centuries A.D. In the 6th century it became the capital of the early feudal lands of the Bukhara oasis. As the Shakhristan, the centre of a shah’s realm, it was formed around an ancient citadel, but with the development of handicrafts and trade, new suburbs (rabads) arose beyond its walls, which were included with the Shakhristan in a new fortified wall.

Remains of it dating back to the sixteenth century have survived to our day. Bukhara preserves genuine treasures of architecture of the pre-Mongol period, although not very many in number. One of them is the mausoleum of the Samanids, built in the ninth and tenth centuries. This modest structure is, by virtue of its artistic aspect and the lucid logic of its construction, a true monumental piece of architecture. The art of its construction, the virtuosic use of fired brick in decoration, and the lay-out of the building place it among the masterpieces of world architecture.

In the 16th century, after the establishment of the Uzbek Shaibanai dynasty, Bukhara once again became the capital of a large Central Asian state. The city grew and new walls were built. The intensive construction here started with a Friday mosque, erected in 1514 in the place of an older twelfth century mosque beside the Kalyan minaret. It became one of the biggest structures in Central Asia. On the other side of the square in which the minaret stands, the Miri-Arab madrasah was built in 1535-1536. The madrasah, the mosque and minaret comprise one of the most impressive ensembles in Bukhara.

Civil building played an important role in 16th century Bukhara architecture: the bazaar takis, caravansarais and baths. They are extremely expressive in their clear-cut silhouettes and constructional solution.

• Chirchiq :

Chirchiq (Chirchik) is a city in eastern Uzbekistan, about 32 km northeast of Tashkent, beside the Chirchiq River. Chirchiq lies in the Chatkal Mountains of the Tian Shan mountain range. It is in the middle of an intensively cultivated area, producing mainly vegetables and fruits, including melons and grapes. A large electro-chemical factory produces nitrogenous fertilizer for the region’s collective farms. Chirchiq’s industries also include the production of ferroalloys (a group of iron alloys) and machinery for the agricultural and chemical industries.

• Denau :

The name Denau means “new village”. Situated along the Sukhandarya river, along the ancient road to Dushanbe, it is today a small bustling town of 61,000 inhabitants. Centuries ago, a stronghold of the Gissar/Hissar Khan, it was later named after Denau Beg, the Emir of Bukhara.

Historical and architectural monuments of Denau

• Madrasah Sayid Atalik (16th c.)

• Fergana:

Samarkand is known as a “Pearl of the East”, Fergana is famous as a “Pearl of Uzbekistan”.

Famous for its beautiful landscapes and ancient history, Fergana located in eastern Uzbekistan, on the southern edge of the Fergana Valley. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, and about 75 km west of Andijan.Ferghana City is the administrative centre of Ferghana region. Its territory is 70 square km and the population is 230,000 people.

The Fergana region is located in the southern part of the Fergana Valley, bounded by Tyan-Shan Mountains along the Syrdarya River, the main water supplier of the region. Covering 6,800 sq.km (1,6% of Uzbekistan’s territory), Fergana region borders Kyrgyzstan to the east, Tajikistan to the south, and the Andijan and Namangan regions to the west. The region has an ethnically diverse population of 1,5 million, 10% of Uzbekistan’s population.

The Great Fergana Canal, built almost entirely by hand during the 1930s, passes through the northern part of the city.

• Karshi :

Karshi, is a city in southern Uzbekistan, in Kashqadaryo province about 520 km south-southwest of Tashkent, and about 335 km north of Uzbekistan’s border with Afghanistan.

In the early 1970s the first section of a major irrigation project was completed to divert water from the Amu-Darya River in Turkmenistan eastward into Uzbekistan to irrigate the land surrounding Karshi.The city is important in natural gas production; the Shurtan gas field and a large processing facility are located northwest of the city.

Historical and architectural monuments of Karshi, there are:

• Kok mosque.
• Kok-Gumbaz.
• Abdulazaz Khadja madrasah.
• Yer Kurgan settlement.

1. Khiva (Khorezm) :

Khiva is an ancient city on the lower reaches of the Amu-Darya. In the fourteenth century it became prominent among the towns of Khorezm, and in the eighteenth century it was the capital of the Khiva Khanate. Only at the beginning of the nineteenth century was Khiva developed into a prominent cultural center. One after another, a number of monumental buildings were erected. They filled the older part of the city – the shakhristan Ichan-kaleh – and many of them were built by the Eastern gates of Palvan-Darvaz and along the street which runs towards the western gates.

One of the busiest parts of Khiva was its western gates, the Palvan-Darvaz. Nearby, the Anush-khan baths and the single story madrassah of Khoja Amerdibey were built in the seventeenth century.

1. Kokand :

Kokand located in eastern Uzbekistan, in Fergana province at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. A traveler on his way to Ferghana first arrives in Kokand, which is an industrial, cultural, and transportation hub, and a land of popular poets, writers, scholars, art and culture.

Kokand is 228 km southeast of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, 115 km west of Andijan, and 88 km west of the city of Fergana. Kokand is located on the crossroads of the ancient trade routes, at the junction of two main routes into the Fergana Valley, one leading northwest over the mountains to Tashkent, and the other west through Khujand. As a result, Kokand is the main transportation junction in the Fergana Valley. Kokand is a center for the production of textiles, food, and chemicals.

1. Margilan :

The city is located 12 kilometers from the regional center and is one of the oldest cities in the Fergana Valley. City area – 50 sq.m and a population of over 165,000 people. Margilan located at an altitude of 475 meters above sea level. Located 15 km from Fergana and Kokand.

More reliable records indicate that Margilan was an important stop on the Silk Road by the 9th century AD, along the route going across the Alay Mountains (ancient Mount Imeon) to Kashgar.

1. Namangan :

Namangan is a city in eastern Uzbekistan, on the northern edge of the Fergana Valley, about 430 km east of Tashkent, about 65 km west of Andijan, and about 75 km north of Fergana. The Koradaryo and Naryn rivers join together to form the Syr Darya just outside the southern edge of the city.

The city of Namangan ranks third largest in Uzbekistan, after Tashkent and Samarkand, yet it appears a relative newcomer to this eastern cradle of Ferghana civilization. It takes its name from local salt mines, namakkan, longtime suppliers to the kitchens of Tashkent.

1. Samarkand :

Among the cities of the world, one of the most ancient is Samarkand, whose history dates back 2,500 years. In its time, the city was conquered by the warriors of Alexander the Great, the Army of the Arab Caliphate, and the Mongol hordes of Genghis-khan. Each time, after the bloody battles, devastation and fire, it was reborn, to become once again an important city, and at times the capital of a major Central Asian state.

After the seventeenth century, the situation in the country changed. Never did architecture in Samarkand reach such heights again. But the ancient city continued to exist, and now it is once more a thriving, developing city, one of the industrial and cultural centers of Uzbekistan.

1. Termez :

This is a kingdom of trade routes and brave warriors. This is a land famous worldwide for its richness in gold and lazurite. Archeological discoveries have proven that the origin of agricultural civilization in this territory dates back to before the 5 thc. BC.The earliest signs of culture appeared during the Stone Age.

Final Review of Uzbekistan Tourism

Welcome to Uzbekistan – an oasis of peace, a land where ancient history and modern culture converge, a country located at the mid-point of the Great Silk Road! It’s the oldest land in Central Asia, maintaining a twenty-five century long history, a country with a specific historical and cultural community different from that of other regions. Recently, tourist interest in Uzbekistan has markedly increased and accordingly, the range of travel facilities and the services of local tour operators are being expanded year by year in order to draw more travelers to explore this wonderful place.

Traveling around Uzbekistan is an adventure filled with fascinating cultural discoveries, history and breathtaking natural beauty. Travelers have the opportunity to travel through living history, not just among remnants kept in the confines of a museum, but also experience the silence of the distant past among the sites of ancient settlements, temples and tombs – a great place to escape from busy civilization. This is a land full of oriental romance, for anyone in search of a view into the past. A land of cotton and orchards, entertaining bazaars, and artisans practicing their trades in the same manner as has been done for thousands of years.

Uzbek hospitality, which are so deeply rooted within its people, the unique local customs and tasty national cuisine of Uzbekistan make it a very attractive tourism destination for travelers from all over the world.