Author: Dilshod Karimov, Cultural Heritage Specialist and Travel Guide

I used to think writing about Khiva would be easy. You show up with your camera, take some photos of those turquoise domes everyone’

I used to think felting was just something my grandmother did with old sweaters. Then I spent three weeks in Bukhara’s old city, watching artisans

I used to think horseback riding tours were all the same—polished trails, scripted guides, maybe a sunset photo op if you were lucky. Then I ended up in

I never expected to find myself crouched in a dusty field outside Samarkand, watching a man named Rustam thread a bowstring with the kind of focus you’

I used to think mountain biking near Tashkent meant dusty roads and not much else. Turns out—and this surprised me when I first moved here, honestly—the

The thing about Uzbekistan’s national parks is that nobody really talks about them. I spent three weeks last summer wandering through the Chatkal

I used to think straw was just something you threw away after harvest. Then I watched Gulnora Karimova’s hands move through a pile of dried wheat

I used to think hiring a guide in Uzbekistan was overkill—until I got spectacularly lost in Bukhara’s old city, wandering the same labyrinth of clay

I’ll be honest—I never thought I’d spend three weeks chasing plov across Tashkent, but here we are. The thing about plov is that it’