Tashkent & the Fergana Valley

Tashkent grew from the oasis of Chach, or Shash, on the Chirchiq river, a Sogdian and Turkic trading town on the road north to the steppe. It was taken by the Arabs, the Samanids, the Mongols and the Timurids, and in the 16th century it was a notable centre of the Shaybanid Uzbeks, who built the Kukeldash madrasa. The Fergana Valley to the east was ancient Dayuan, whose "heavenly horses" drew Han Chinese armies across the mountains in the 2nd century BC, and later the homeland of Babur, born in Andijan in 1483, who lost Fergana, took Kabul and founded the Mughal Empire in India.

In the 18th century Kokand became the seat of a new khanate that came to rule the whole valley and, from the early 19th century, Tashkent. Russian forces stormed Tashkent in 1865, made it the capital of Russian Turkestan, and annexed the Kokand Khanate in 1876, building a European new town beside each old one, including Fergana city, first called New Margilan.

Under Soviet rule Tashkent became the capital of the Uzbek republic and the largest city in Soviet Central Asia. The earthquake of 1966 destroyed much of the old centre, and it was rebuilt as a planned city with a metro. After independence the Fergana Valley saw ethnic violence and Islamist activity in the 1990s, and in 2005 security forces killed many protesters in Andijan.

Tashkent is the most cosmopolitan and Russian-speaking city in the country, home to Uzbeks, Russians, Tatars, Koreans deported by Stalin in the 1930s and many others. It sets national fashions in music, dress and weddings, and its cafés and theatres give it a more secular, urban feel than anywhere else.

The Fergana Valley has a different reputation: more conservative, more devout and fiercely proud of its crafts and hospitality. Valley Uzbek has its own accents, and Tajik and Kyrgyz communities live near the borders. The valley is the heart of the country's craft traditions: khan-atlas and adras ikat silk and half-silk in Margilan, glazed ceramics with a local plant-ash glaze in Rishtan, and knives with decorated handles from Chust in Namangan region.

Classical music, maqom, and folk singing are strong in the valley, and Kokand, the old khanate capital, carries a scholarly and literary tradition. Weddings are large everywhere, and guests are welcomed with bread, tea and sweets on a laid dastarkhan.

Tashkent, with about 3 million people, is the largest city in Central Asia and the centre of government, business and education. Its tree-lined avenues, metro stations and Soviet blocks now stand beside new business districts, and the city is growing fast, with traffic and rising rents the everyday complaints.

The Fergana Valley holds a large share of the country's people on a small area of irrigated land, with Namangan, Andijan, Fergana, Kokand and Margilan the main cities, each of a few hundred thousand people or fewer. Cotton, silk, fruit and vegetables dominate farming, and Asaka in Andijan region has the country's main car plant. Land is scarce, families are large, and many young men work in Russia or Tashkent.

Life in the valley revolves around the mahalla, the bazaar and the mosque, with Friday prayers well attended. Shared water from rivers that cross three countries is a long-running regional issue.

Tashkent has its own versions of the national dishes: wedding plov, to'y oshi, cooked in huge cauldrons at dawn and served at plov centres by lunchtime, and norin, cold hand-cut noodles with thin slices of horse meat. Its bazaars sell samsa from tandoors, chuchvara dumplings and grilled shashlik by the skewer.

The Fergana Valley cooks its own versions of plov, and lagman, hand-pulled noodles, is especially popular here, and the valley's orchards supply apricots, pomegranates, grapes, cherries and melons in huge quantities.

Green tea is drunk throughout the day, often in a choyxona over a long lunch, and in Tashkent beer and coffee culture have spread among the young.

Tashkent's old city centres on Chorsu bazaar, under its blue dome, and the 16th-century Kukeldash madrasa, with the Khast Imam complex nearby, whose library housed an early copy of the Qur'an linked to the Caliph Uthman until 2025. The Soviet city offers Amir Timur Square, the Museum of Applied Arts, the State Museum of Arts and the metro, whose decorated stations are sights in themselves.

North-east of the capital, the Chimgan mountains rise above the Charvak reservoir. Greater Chimgan is a popular climb, the Beldersay and Amirsoy resorts offer skiing in winter, and the Ugam-Chatkal National Park protects forested slopes and high mountain valleys beyond.

Across the Kamchik Pass, Kokand has the tiled palace of Khudayar Khan, built in the 1870s, the wooden-columned Jami mosque and the Narbutabey madrasa. Rishtan, to the south, is a town of potters' workshops where masters throw and paint bowls in blue and turquoise. Margilan's Yodgorlik factory shows each stage of ikat silk-making, from cocoons to looms, and the Kumtepa bazaar nearby is one of the valley's great markets. Andijan is Babur's birthplace, and Namangan the Mullah Kyrgyz madrasa.