Travel

Navruz is an ancient and common holiday of the region’s people. It is based on such noble ideas as friendship, harmony, generosity and good-neighborliness. Our people since ancient times celebrate it together with friends and relatives.

Last year, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid a state visit to the Republic of Kazakhstan on Navruz days.

This year President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev visited the city of Samarkand to congratulate people of Uzbekistan on Navruz holiday.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev met the distinguished guest.

The meeting of heads of the two states was held at the Complex of forums, in Samarkand.

Our fraternal people have lived side by side, both in joy and sorrow. Friendship and harmony serve as a solid foundation for development of cooperation.

At the initiative of Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Nursultan Nazarbayev, cooperation between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan has been raised to a new level. Contacts between ministries and departments, regions of the two countries have been intensified. New transport corridors, railway and bus routes have been opened.

Cultural and humanitarian cooperation has expanded. Artists, poets and writers of the two countries are actively participating in joint exhibitions and festivals, cultural and educational events. The announcement of 2018 as the Year of Uzbekistan in Kazakhstan is aimed at further development of cultural ties between our people.

Presidents noted that sincere relations between the states of the region, in particular Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, are becoming stronger than ever, the created conveniences on the borders opened up ample opportunities for mutual trips of citizens of the two countries.

The current state of cooperation between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan was highly appreciated, views were exchanged on issues of its further development.

Nursultan Nazarbayev and Shavkat Mirziyoyev visited the Khazrati Khizr complex, the mausoleum of the founder of independent Uzbekistan Islam Karimov. Laid flowers to the burial place of the First President of Uzbekistan and honored his memory.

The President of Kazakhstan, accompanied by the President of Uzbekistan, inspected the sights of Samarkand.

Thereupon, the visit of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev to Uzbekistan ended.

Uzbekistan: the name conjures images of far-away mosques and blue-tiled domes, camels and caravanserai, mosaics and medressas. It’s true that Uzbekistan is the kind of place that many people don’t reach, but the country has chugged into the new millennium with an excellent high-speed train network that makes getting around here much easier than many travellers might think.

The country’s three major cities, and its most famous monuments, are all connected by bullet trains that make getting around fast and comfortable. History buffs, desert lovers, post-Soviet architecture seekers and anyone drawn by the mystique of the Silk Road will find Uzbekistan a welcoming and surprisingly easy place to travel.

Samarkand’s Registan Square at dusk © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

A complete itinerary requires one week, starting in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, before railing southwest across the desert to mystical Bukhara, tracking east to monument-laden Samarkand, and then rolling back to Tashkent. Here’s our easy whistle-stop tour of Uzbekistan by high-speed train.

High-speed Afrosiyob Talgo train arriving into Bukhara Railway Station from Tashkent © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

Uzbekistan’s railway network: what to know

Uzbekistan’s high-speed train network – the Afrosiyob – connects its capital Tashkent with the major cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. Uzbekistan Railways utilises Talgo-brand trains – the same roomy carriages on which you’d zip around Spain. There are three classes of travel: economy, business and VIP, but even in economy, the double-seater, air-conditioned carriages are extremely comfortable and include a complimentary snack service of tea and biscuits, and wide windows through which to watch the dusty Uzbek landscape zip by.

Interior of economy class on an Uzbekistan Railways high-speed train © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

Tickets can (and should) be bought in advance through a travel agency or hotel, or purchased at the station. Your seat and coach number are printed on your ticket, which will be collected by a conductor when you board (so memorise your seat number!) and returned to you before your arrival station.

Tashkent

Uzbekistan’s tidy, gleaming capital city, Tashkent, nods to its Soviet past in monumental brutalist buildings, such as the stoic Hotel Uzbekistan, but manages to be far less austere than one might imagine a post-Soviet city to be. The desert climate here ensures blue skies most days, and the city employs a hearty crew of cleaners to keep the streets, gardens and parks spick and span (to the point that it’s not unlikely to observe a truly dedicated gardener trimming grass to an exacting length with a pair of scissors).

Friendly vegetable vendor in Tashkent’s Chorsu Bazaar © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

Don’t miss the Barak Khan Medressa and other treasures at Khast Imom Square and go for a stroll through the city’s main shopping hub, Chorsu Bazaar, where you can pick up fruits and vegetables, local pickles and knickknacks, and see a staggering array of meats on sale from local butchers.

Train tips

Tashkent’s railway station is a grand, blue-windowed structure dating to the early 1980s. You’ll need photo ID to pass through the two security checkpoints to get into the grounds and then into the station. There are a few snack bars inside once you’re through. It is served by Tashkent metro station on the blue Uzbekistan Line.

Tangled up in blue: Tashkent Railway Station © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

True railway buffs will also want to pay a visit to the Railway Museum, an open-air yard with dozens of archaic Soviet locos to admire.

Bukhara

Often dubbed as Central Asia’s holiest city, Bukhara is a millennium old and is the best place to see the remains of the ancient Silk Road, unrestored. Bukhara is home to numerous monuments, including the Kalon Mosque, whose minaret (built in 1127) is famously the only structure Chinggis Khan spared in his rampages across the steppe. But the true joy of a visit to Bukhara is in wandering around the city’s labyrinthine old town – a maze of mud-walled, low-rise structures connected by winding dirt streets.

Spared by Chinggis: Bukhara’s Kalon Mosque and its 12th-century minaret © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

Train tips

The high-speed line has reduced train travel between Tashkent and Bukhara from seven hours to just under three. The city’s train station is 10km south of the centre, and taxi touts ply the station’s car park when trains arrive. Bargain hard (around 4000 som should get you to town) or hop on Minibus 68 to Lyabi-Hauz.

Samarkand

For many, the name Samarkand is synonymous with the Silk Road, and indeed this ancient city fulfils most visitors’ dreams with its gleaming, blue-tiled domes and elegant Timurid facades covered in geometric patterns.

Uzbek tourists visit Samarkand’s ornately tiled Shah-i-Zinda mausoleum © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

For centuries, Samarkand was literally and metaphorically the centre of the world: nomads, traders, soldiers and scholars passed through this crossroads city on their way along the Silk Road. Ideas and goods that shaped the world as we now know it – spices, fabrics, architectural styles, religious texts and fashions – passed through the Registan. This, Samarkand’s main square flanked by three stately medressas (Islamic schools), has become the icon of Central Asia.

Numerous mosques, medressas and mausoleums (including the tomb of Persian ruler Timur himself, the Gur-e-Amir Mausoleum) are scattered around Samarkand, and its sparkling streets and busy bazaars are truly pleasant to wander through. Make sure you visit the Registan at sundown, when the blue desert light casts beautiful glints across the medressas, and once the sun is low enough, a glow of uplifting lights are switched on, illuminating the entire square.

Gilded interior of the Gur-e-Amir, Persian ruler Timur’s final resting place © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

Train tips

Samarkand has been a centre of train travel since the first locomotives arrived here at the end of the 19th century, when the Russian empire made it a stop on the Trans-Caspian Railway. Both the trip from Bukhara to Samarkand as well as Samarkand back to Tashkent take around two hours. The first phase of a shiny tram system opened in Samarkand in April 2017, and future lines are set to connect the railway station with the tourist centre of the city in 2018. Until then, making the journey in a taxi should cost around 8000 som.

The curving walls of Khiva’s remarkably well-preserved old town © Ozbalci / Getty Images

Khiva

The ancient walled city of Khiva, located in the far west of Uzbekistan, is one of the country’s Silk Road drawcards, but due to its remote location, it is less busy than other sights. Though Khiva is not yet served by the high-speed rail network, construction of a line extension will connect it to the rest of the country at speed in 2018.

Free snacks: tea and jam biscuits served on Uzbekistan’s bullet trains © Megan Eaves / Lonely Planet

Framed by the snowy peaks of the Tian Shan mountains on the southern horizon, two teams of horsemen gather at centre field in Bishkek’s Ak-Kula Hippodrome to compete in the championship match of Kyrgyzstan’s national sport, kok-boru.

In a scene that plays out with small variations across the major cities of Central Asia each March, celebrations for the traditional Nowruzholiday – Central Asia’s largest – begin early with horse games, performances and picnics and last late into the night with pop concerts and fireworks displays. Nowruz is typically celebrated on 20 or 21 March, though dates vary each year.

Traditional dancers perform in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan during Nowruz © Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

While western celebration of the holiday is a relatively recent phenomenon (UNESCO listed it as ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ in 2009), Persian tradition holds Nowruz (literally “New Day” in Farsi; also Navrus in Uzbek, Nauryz in Kazakh, Novruz in Turkmen, Nooruzin Kyrgyz and Nauroz in Dari) to be a 15,000-year-old celebration of the end of winter and the start of a new year and new harvest cycle.

Modern celebrations in the region forego the traditional feasts of Iranian homes in favour of national sports, public spectacles and more than a bit of vodka to see the old year out and the new year in.

History of Nowruz in Central Asia

Originally a Zoroastrian harvest festival later subsumed into the Persian calendar, Nowruz was most likely introduced into Central Asia during the Achaemenid era (c. 550–330 BC). The ongoing popularity of the holiday across Central Asia is one of many indelible remnants of the empires that variously ruled this region the centuries. While the artefacts of the ‘Stans’ more recent Soviet legacy are often more immediately apparent to visitors – Lenin statues, the Pamir Highwayand monuments to the former reach of the Aral Sea – echoes of Central Asia’s Persian roots are sometimes less obvious.

Kok-boru is the traditional sport of Nowruz © Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

Disallowed as a religious observance during the Soviet era, Nowruz has re-emerged in force since 1991 as the cultures of the region have re-engaged with their ancient roots. As Central Asia looks towards spring each March, Nowruz marks the turning point at which the worst of winter has passed and the start of a new year means the return of warmth and life to the countryside.

Nowruz food and drink

Sumalak, a thick wheat-based beverage, is typically drunk during Nowruz © Stephen Lioy / Lonely Planet

From capital cities to remote villages, the holiday is marked in much the same way throughout the ‘Stans. For many days before 20 March, the women of each household clean and cook and prepare for the new year. Sumalak (Sümölök; Сумолок in Kyrgyz), a wheat-based beverage, shows up on the streets this one day each year. The wheat is soaked in water for a week until it sprouts, and it has to be cooked for a full day with sugar, flour and oil. Dark, grainy, earthy, thick…it’s the kind of thing you want to drink exactly once a year.

A Nowruz dinner table is traditionally laid out with seven items, all beginning with the Arabic sound ‘sh’ – sharob (wine), shir (milk), shirinliklar (sweets), shakar (sugar), sharbat (sherbet), sham (a candle) and shona (a new bud). The candles are a throwback to pre-Islamic traditions and the new bud symbolises the renewal of life.

Nowruz sport: kok-boru

For locals and tourists alike, Nowruz is also often an excuse to get out and watch kok-boru. Known originally as buzkashi (a Persian phrase meaning ‘goat dragging’), the name of the game varies from country to country but the chief objective is the same: a team of horsemen carry a goat carcass to a large goal at the end of a playing field while preventing a competing team from doing the same. Though deeply traditional, some visitors understandably may find the sport unsettling or even gruesome.

Kok-boru and other equestrian sports are popular throughout the ‘Stans during Nowruz © Stephen Lioy / Lonely Planet

The rules of the game sound simple, but the crashing of twenty fierce riders who are attempting the already significant challenge of dragging a whole goat from ground to horseback to goal is an event meriting the furore of the large crowds that gather to watch. Add in large sums of cash and prizes like new cars, and it becomes a local focal point of the holiday season.

Nowruz customs

Nowruz is a day to spend with family, visit friends and neighbours, and maybe show off a bit; the kind of day to dress up in your finest clothes and your nicest hat and head out to socialise.

Family and food: two important components of Nowruz in Central Asia © VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP/Getty Images

Whether sipping on sumolok with the neighbours, sharing meat skewers with friends or joining the stadium crowds to cheer on horsemen from across the country, in Central Asia Nowruz is a day to be out and about, celebrating spring’s warmth even if the last snows of winter still linger on the streets and hills.

With the horse games finished on the morning of 21 March, in village fields and capital city stadiums, the mostly-male kok-boru audiences trickle back into town centres to rejoin family celebrations. In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, as traffic is rerouted around the central square and boisterous midday dance troupes give way to early evening pop stars, yurt tents erected for Nowruz keep waitresses busy passing out cup after cup of tea.