Khiva and Bukhara: Two Great Silk Road Cities
Table of Contents
Revisiting Uzbekistan: Khiva and Bukhara
The Silk Road is an evocative notion, and redolent with imagery. It is, in fact, not a single passage from Europe to China, but a vast network of roads and tracks, cities and waypoints that lubricated the east/west trade of the first fifteen centuries of the last millennia. Of the nearly 6,500 kilometres of identified track, I have chosen to look at the 400 kms of the network between Bukhara and Khiva in Uzbekistan.
The las Central Asian country I visited was the deeply unusual Turkmenistan, and while I loved that experienced, I was hoping for a slightly more orthodox journey this time.
This is desert country; no landscape for sissies. Scrub, sand, dust and a flat plane lying for hundreds of kilometres in any direction. Yet travellers passed through in large numbers and cities sprang up to meet their needs and relieve passers-by of any surplus wealth.
Bukhara and Khiva are magnificent places; their architecture is breath-taking, the development of the communities inspiring and their resilience in the face of climatic, political and religious conflict is remarkable.
And well worth visiting.
I had previously visited Uzbekistan in 2017, but then only to Tashkent and Samarkand. It was a trip that left me puzzled and keen to dig a little deeper. I finally returned last week and some of questions I left with have been answered, but I am still left with an overwhelming feeling of having been a participant in an elaborate, and very well dressed, performance.
The Soviets are, of course, to blame.
The Phoenix Rises
From the mid-1920s until 1992 Uzbekistan was a part of the USSR; this was a regime not noted for its protection and safeguarding of historical sites. Mosques and madrassas were painted white and used for storage; monuments’ paint peeled and bricks disintegrated. Seventy years of neglect virtually destroyed two thousand years of development.
And that seemed to be the course of my discomfort.
The entirety of Uzbekistan’s history was refurbished and restored by teams of local and Chinese artisans over a twenty-year period, and the resulting patina leaves little or no distinction between the 4th or 16th century buildings. The architecture is spectacular, and of course the differences in age is obvious, but there is always a slight suggestion of a theme-park.
A very nice one, to be sure, but the singular restoration of multiple eras leaves a slightly destabilized feeling.
There are a lot of tourists here. Uzbekistan is very much an “in” place it seems. Visitor numbers for the first nine-months of 2026 exceeded all of 2025 by 35%; and they all seem to be here. The vast majority come from neighbouring countries with Kyrgyzstan oddly leading the way. Mostly family visits, I was told, and a result of the Soviet governments shuffling people around for decades.
Then there are the others. Russians by the score, Spanish and Italian visitors following guides holding their country flags and Chinese tourists by the bus-load. To accommodate these numbers many old houses in the city’s centre have been converted into “Boutique” hotels. Small, often with only ten or so rooms, they are comfortable, moderately priced and universally friendly.
Guides are plentiful, the transportation system, including a very fancy new spanish high-speed train, is easy and makes the country’s primary destinations of Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva easily visited.
Now is the time to visit!
Central Asia is a fabulous place to explore. “The Stans” as they are a trifle dismissively referred, are all as different as one can imagine. Different economically, politically and geographically, but all offering visitors a fascinating glimpse into a history rich in stories, people and culture.
The Silk Road is an evocative concept; one that I love. In a week or so I shall be back to Georgia and yet another important stop on this ancient, absorbing and prosperous network. It is an extraordinary system of connections that still resonates in the twenty-first century.