Tashkent & Margilan

Next I was in a shared taxi to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. Tashkent was also a major player on the silk road, but after being destroyed by an earthquake in 1966 it was rebuilt by the Soviet Union as the model soviet city so little remains of its silk road history. Soviet cities are characterized by wide tree lined avenues, large parks and plazas often with fountains or large monuments at the centre, grand brutalist architecture for state buildings and numerous uniform apartment blocks, and large mosaics and murals dotted around. I find these cities fascinating and spend hours wandering around checking out the architecture and hunting for mosaics.

Tashkent was the 4th largest city in the USSR at the time of its rebuild and is home to the first metro in Central Asia, which was modelled on the famous Moscow metro. Each station is different but they are all grandly designed, often with murals and chandeliers. The actual trains seem to be from that time period as well! Another iconic soviet relic is Hotel Uzbekistan, a brutalist masterpiece that hasn't changed much on the inside since it's completion in 1974. However after independence from the USSR the monument to Karl Marx outside was replaced with a large Timur of silk road fame.

After spending a while wandering around the tree lined streets of Tashkent enjoying the architecture and good coffee, I was back on a slow train to Margilan in the Fergana Valley. Silk has been produced in the Fergana Valley for thousands of years. Margilan became the centre of its production and it is still the major industry in the area, making Uzbekistan the 3rd largest silk producer after China and India. I visited the Soviet era Yodgorlik Silk Factory, where they still produce silk in both the traditional way on manual looms, and using mechanical looms, which were pretty interesting in their own right as they were original soviet era machines. I was impressed they were still going!Read more