Back to UZ & the old city of Kokand
September 22 in Uzbekistan ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
After the double measure of beers last night (we just couldn't resist the lovely garden bar at the hotel), getting up this morning was a slight challenge. But still, we are all ready to be 'on the road' again even before 8am.
We are going back into Uzbekistan today - the 3rd and last time on this trip. The border is about 80km from Khujand along another bumpy road.
On the way, we drive past a long stretch of double barbed wire fence. Unbeknownst to me, we are very close to the border to Kyrgyzstan, so close that a 'welcome to Kyrgyzstan' message popped up on my phone.
In fact, there has been a Tajikistan– Kyrgyzstan border dispute near Khujand & Fergana Valley for many years, where overlapping Soviet-era boundaries and mixed ethnic settlements led to violent clashes in 2021–2022. Hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced.
On the other side of the road is the Kairakum Reservoir (renamed Tajik Sea in 2016), Tajikistan’s largest artificial lake, created by the Kairakum Dam in the 1950s for irrigation and hydropower and now tied to regional water-sharing tensions between Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.
After about 1.5 hours we reach the border with Uzbekistan. Apparently, it's a quiet border and it should be fairly quick and painless (as stated by the tour operator) process.
We expect the same spiel ...
Well, we are used to it by now ...
But indeed, it's less busy and we are the only foreigners and the Tajik border guard is told by his supervisor to process our group first. There is only a short distance between the two borders and after being in a scrum with the locals at the Uzbek border, we are through in less than an hour. Mind you, the Uzbek border guard did take a long time to check my passport 🤷🙈
From the border, it's another hour before we get to Kokand, our next stop for a tour of the city.
Our local guide, Abror, keeps us entertained by sharing some insight about the region
☝️Fergana Valley is Central Asia’s agricultural heartland, fed by the Syr Darya river system, this intensely fertile basin covers roughly 22,000 sq km across eastern Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
☝️The valley is the most densely populated corner of Central Asia, home to over a third of Uzbekistan's entire population despite occupying less than 5% of its land area.
☝️The area is often called Central Asia's "fruit basket," producing apricots, pomegranates, melons, grapes, and walnuts.
☝️The main crop is still cotton. Right now it's high season for harvest and we see plenty of people - mainly women - picking cotton on the fields along the road. However land is increasingly reallocated away from cotton to higher-value, lower-water horticulture—cherries, apricots, pomegranates, and vegetables intended for export to Russia, China, and the Gulf.
We finally make it to Kokand, once the capital of the Kokand Khanate, one of the three major Uzbek khanates (kingdoms) of the 18th–19th centuries, alongside Bukhara and Khiva. It became an important centre of trade in the fertile Fergana Valley and was particularly prosperous in the 19th century
Having agreed to skip mosque and madrassas again, the only item on the sightseeing tour is the Palace of Khudáyár Khan, often called the Pearl of Kokand.
Built in the 1870s for Khudayar Khan, the last ruler of the Kokand Khanate, it was designed as a spectacular statement of royal power. By the early 19th century, under rulers like Alim Khan and Umar Khan, the Khanate expanded rapidly, controlling the entirety of the Fergana Valley, Tashkent, southern Kazakhstan, and parts of modern Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Kokand became a city of wealth, poetry, and religion, boasting more than 300 mosques and dozens of madrasahs.
The palace originally covered around 4 ha, had seven courtyards and more than 119 rooms.
What immediately catches our eye is the extraordinary colourful facade: turquoise, blue, yellow and green glazed tiles, geometric patterns and Arabic calligraphy. The colours make it quite different from the predominantly blue-and-turquoise monuments of places such as Samarkand.
Only 19 rooms and two courtyards survive today after much of the complex was demolished during the turbulent years following the Russian conquest and later Soviet period.
The palace barely outlived its owner: Khudayar Khan was driven into exile in 1875 (just a few years after completion of the palace), and in 1876 the Russian Empire officially abolished the Kokand Khanate, absorbing the Fergana Valley into Russian Turkestan. Therefore, this magnificent palace represents the final flourish of an independent Kokand royal court.
Entering the palace, the first thing we notice are the pomegranate trees in the middle of the courtyard - an abundance of colour. In the reception hall, we marvel at the carved plasterwork, painted ceilings and wooden details — a wonderful witness of the craftsmanship in 19th-century Fergana.
The surviving palace now houses a local history museum where we found an interesting map of the Silk Road, clearly showing the multitude of roads.
Even if it might feel like we had a long day already, it's only lunch time. So we are off to fill our tummies.Read more