Khiva

Local tradition says Khiva grew around a well called Kheivak, dug on the order of Shem, son of Noah, and that the water still tastes of it. Firmer history begins with the oasis of Khwarazm on the lower Amu Darya, a chain of irrigated settlements and fortified towns that had been farming the delta for thousands of years. Khiva was a modest stop on the caravan route to the Caspian until the Amu Darya changed course and the ruling Uzbek khans moved their capital here from Kunya-Urgench around the turn of the 17th century.

As capital of the Khanate of Khiva it grew rich in ways travellers found appalling: alongside cotton, silk and caravan trade, the town ran one of Central Asia's largest slave markets, supplied by Turkmen raiders who seized Persians and Russians from the steppe. Khans of the 19th century — above all Allakuli Khan and Muhammad Amin Khan — rebuilt the inner town, raising the madrasas, the Tash Hauli palace and the never-finished Kalta Minor.

In 1873 a Russian force under General Kaufman took the town, and the khanate continued as a Russian protectorate with its territory much reduced. The last khan was deposed in 1920 and the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic declared; within a few years the area was divided between the Uzbek and Turkmen republics. The Soviet authorities eventually treated Itchan Kala as a museum, resettling some residents and restoring monuments, and in 1990 it became the first site in Uzbekistan inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Khiva belongs to Khorezm, a region with a strong identity of its own inside Uzbekistan. The local dialect sits closer to Oghuz Turkic — the branch that includes Turkmen and Turkish — than to the Uzbek of Tashkent, and Khorezmians are quick to point out the difference. The region's emblem is the lazgi, a fast dance built on shoulder shakes and rapid hand movements, said to have ancient roots and added to the UNESCO list of intangible heritage in 2019; it is danced at weddings and performed for visitors in the old town's courtyards.

Craft is the other pillar. Khiva's woodcarvers are known across Central Asia for the deep floral carving on the columns and doors of the old town, work that a few families have passed down for generations, and madrasas inside the walls now house carving, silk weaving, carpet and ceramic workshops. The sheepskin hats worn by older men, tall and shaggy, are a Khorezm signature.

Religious life centres on the mausoleum of Pahlavan Mahmud, a 13th-century poet, wrestler and healer adopted as the town's patron saint; pilgrims come from across the region, and the courtyard is treated as a place of quiet. Khivans live daily among monuments and have grown used to visitors, though families inside Itchan Kala guard their privacy: the lanes behind the main axis are homes, not exhibits.

About 90,000 people live in Khiva, a small town by Uzbek standards, and only a few thousand of them inside the walls. Tourism shapes far more of the economy than anywhere else in the region — guesthouses, restaurants, guides, drivers and craft workshops — but the surrounding Khorezm oasis is still farmland, irrigated by canals from the Amu Darya and planted with cotton, rice, wheat, melons and fruit trees.

The working day starts early, particularly in summer, when outdoor work stops in the worst of the afternoon heat and life resumes in the cool of the evening. The bazaar outside the eastern gate is the town's practical centre, and households buy bread, fruit and meat daily. Most families live in Dishan Kala or the newer blocks beyond it, in single-storey courtyard houses with a garden and a grapevine, and the mahalla committee organises weddings, funerals and neighbourhood upkeep.

Water is the constant issue: the Amu Darya's flow is heavily drawn on upstream, soils have grown saltier across the delta, and the shrinking of the Aral Sea to the north has made the whole region's climate harsher. Young people leave for Tashkent, Kazakhstan or Russia for work, and money sent home pays for the new houses on the edge of town. Restoration inside Itchan Kala is continuous, and how heavily it is done is a matter of local argument.

Khorezm cooks differently from the rest of Uzbekistan, and Khiva's calling card is shivit oshi — noodles coloured bright green with dill, cut fine, steamed and served under a stew of mutton or beef with potato, carrot and tomato, and a spoonful of sour cream. It appears on nearly every menu in the old town and is made at home for guests. Tukhum barak, a pale parcel of pastry filled with beaten egg and milk and boiled, is the other local speciality, eaten with sour cream.

Bread is obi non baked against the wall of a clay tandir, stamped in the middle and bought fresh each morning; somsa, flaky pastries of lamb and onion, come out of the same ovens. Plov, cooked in a kazan over a wood fire, is the dish for weddings and guests, and the Khorezm version is usually simpler and less sweet than Samarkand's. Shurpa broth, grilled shashlik and manti, large steamed dumplings of minced meat and onion, fill out the everyday table.

The oasis is famous for its melons and watermelons, stacked by the road in late summer, along with apricots, grapes, pomegranates and mulberries. Green tea is drunk constantly and offered to every guest before anything else, usually with bread, dried fruit and sweets set out on the table.