Welcome to Tashkent, the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan, in the north-east of the country. With more than 3 million people, it is the most populous city in Central Asia. For centuries Tashkent lay on the Silk Road, the network of trade routes between East and West, and it has long been a crossroads of cultures, goods and ideas. Genghis Khan destroyed it in 1219, and much of the city fell again in the 1966 earthquake, after which it was rebuilt as a model Soviet city. In 2009 it celebrated 2,200 years of written history. Let's explore its bazaars, madrasahs and metro.
Chorsu Bazaar
Photo: Theklan · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsWelcome to the bustle of Chorsu Bazaar, the traditional market at the centre of Tashkent's old town. Under its great blue dome and in the lanes around it, you can buy just about every daily necessity. The name comes from Persian and means crossroads, or four streams. Here is the surprise: the building that looks so timeless was designed in 1980 by Vladimir Azimov, Sabir Adylov and their colleagues, as a late example of Soviet Modernism. In 2026, UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site together with nine other modernist sites in Tashkent.
Kukeldash Madrasah
Photo: Ymblanter · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsAt the edge of Chorsu Bazaar stands Kukeldash Madrasah, built around 1570 by the Shaybanid ruler Dervish Sultan. Look at its yellow brick and the great portal, 20 metres high, framed by two towers. Behind it lies an inner courtyard ringed with the cells where students lived. This building has led many lives. It became a caravanserai in the 18th century, then a fortress, and in the 20th century a museum, first of atheism and later of folk music. In the 1990s it became a madrasah once more, and it was one of the few religious buildings to survive the 1966 earthquake.
Hazrati Imam Complex
Photo: Ymblanter · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsIn the old city of Tashkent you reach the Hazrati Imam complex, a group of mosques, madrasahs and a mausoleum built from the 16th to the 20th centuries. It grew up near the grave of Hazrati Imam, the first imam-khatib of Tashkent, one of the first Islamic preachers here, as well as a scholar, poet and artist. Sources say he was also a master locksmith, which earned him the nickname Qaffol, meaning locksmith, and that he spoke 72 languages. The complex came through the strong earthquake of 1966.
Amir Timur Square
Photo: Doris Ingeborg Lohse · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsThis is Amir Timur Square, the main square of Tashkent, and its names tell the city's story. It began in 1882 as a park in the era of Russian Turkestan, called Constantinov Square. After the 1917 revolution it became Revolution Square. A statue of Stalin stood here from the late 1940s until it was removed after a 1961 decision, and in 1968 Karl Marx took its place. After Uzbekistan's independence, the square was renamed in 1994, and the statue in front of you, of Timur, was raised on the site.
Tashkent Metro
Photo: Sunrise08_181 · PDM-owner · Wikimedia CommonsHead underground into the Tashkent Metro, which opened in 1977 as the first metro in Central Asia and the seventh in the former Soviet Union. Planning began in 1968, just two years after the great earthquake. As you ride, watch each station go by, because every one is designed around its own theme, often hinted at in the station's name. The system has grown to four lines and 50 stations, and on an average day it carries around 785,000 passengers.
Tashkent Tower
Photo: ShNajimova · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsLook up at the Tashkent Television Tower, a steel tower 375 metres high. The decision to build it was made in 1971, to spread television and radio signals across Uzbekistan, and it began operating on 15 January 1985. For a few years, from 1985 to 1991, it was the fourth tallest tower in the world. Ride up to the observation deck, 97 metres above the ground, for wide views over the city. It is the second tallest structure in Central Asia.
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