Best time to visit in Uzbekistan

March to May, September to October

Top things to do in Uzbekistan

• Explore the desert citadels of Khorezm, overnighting en route in a desert yurt.

• Haggle for carpets, embroidery and striped skills in backstreet bazaars.

• Ride the beautiful Tashkent metro, while dodging a shake-down by the local police.

• Get lost in the mosques, mausolea and madarsas of Bukhara’s backstreets.

Discover Uzbekistan

• Read Peter Hopkirk’s The Great Game, to gem up on the region’s imperial shenanigans.

• Listen to Yol Boisin, by world-music diva Sevara Nazarakhan, or try something by the Tashkent taxi cab favourite Yulduz Usmanova.

• Watch Michael Winterbottom’s Murder in Samarkand starring Steve Coogan as the controversial British ambassador sidelined by his own government.

• Eat a round of shashlyk kebabs, shorpa (soup of boiled mutton with potato, carrot and turnip) or plov (rice, meat and carrots)

• Drink kok choy (green tea) at a traditional teahouse, returning the tea to the pot twice to let it brew, just as the locals do.

One word for Uzbekistan Tourism

Yol boisin (May your travels be free of obstacles)

Places to visit in Uzbekistan

• Samarkand’s Registan Square, one of the world’s great architectural ensembles.

• Shah-i-Zinda, Samarkand, a necropolis that marks the highpoint of Timurid tilework.

• The old slave-raiding walled city of Khiva, frozen in time and surrounded by desert.

• The History Museum of the Uzbek People, Tashkent, a walk through the Central Asian past.

• The scattering of ruined palaces built by Timur (Tamerlane) in His Hometown of Shakrisabz.

Uzbekistan Highlights

Timur, shashlyk, blue-domed mosques, minarets, political repression, desert, plov, cotton, the Silk Road, skullcaps, white beards, the Aral sea disaster