Artisan crafts in the Fergana valley

With lunch and dessert done, it's back in the minibus for a quick snooze before our next stop in Rishtan, the most famous city in eastern Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley renowned for centuries- old pottery traditions and the blue and white ceramic.

We are visiting the house of Rustam Usmanov who is considered one of Uzbekistan’s master potters.

The house serves simultaneously as a family residence, an active artisan workshop, a teaching studio, and an open gallery / museum. We are welcomed into the courtyard under grapevines and can observe key parts of the traditional production process: wheel throwing, natural sun drying and freehand painting with goat-hair brushes.

Today, Rustam works alongside his son, Damir Usmanov, and trains apprentices through the traditional master- apprentice system to ensure the craft survives for future generations.

After the demonstration, we are free to browse the items for sale. Almost every corner of the property - from the courtyard walls and entrance facades - is decorated with glazed earthenware, jugs, tea sets, and intricate ceramic tiles. Stunning pieces with a price tag matching the effort that goes into creating them.

Yes, I was tempted to buy some things but then my minimalist mindset won.

The last stop on our tour today is the Yodgorlik Silk Factory in Margilan, near Fergana. It's the last large-scale workshop in Uzbekistan where silk is still made entirely by hand, from silkworm cocoon to finished fabric. It’s a living craft centre, not a museum, but unfortunately by the time we arrived everyone had gone home, can't blame them, it was 5:30pm already.

We weren't too bothered as we had seen silk production before and would have moved on, but our guide Abror (who used to work in this factory) convinced one person to give us a little demonstration. We were all jolly glad he did, as we saw the process of actually unwinding the silk thread from the cocoon and some batik work. All very interesting!

Of course, after the demonstration, there is the obligatory visit to the sales room 😀

Well, to round off the day, we went to a Korean restaurant - there is a sizeable minority of Koreans in UZ - and did some Karaoke 🎤🎤 of all things 🙈

But what happens in a private room in a Korean restaurant, stays in that room 🤣Read more