Traveling around Uzbekistan

I’ve spent way too many evenings in cramped theater seats trying to understand why Uzbek musical theater sounds the way it does. The thing about

I spent three weeks in Samarkand once, sleeping on a thin mattress in a house that smelled like cumin and old wood. The family I stayed with—Nodira, her

I’ve walked past a dozen shrines in Central Asia, but none felt quite like the Bakhautdin Naqshband complex just outside Bukhara. The mausoleum sits

I used to think harvest songs were just background noise—something old people hummed while sorting cotton. Turns out, I was missing the entire point.

I used to think craft tourism was just another way to sell overpriced souvenirs to tourists who didn’t know better. Then I spent three days in Khiva’

The Gnarled Hands That Shape Pear Wood Into Something Almost Forgotten I used to think fruit wood was just firewood with delusions of grandeur.

I used to think shells were just beach trash. Turns out, in Uzbekistan—a landlocked country, which makes this whole thing even stranger—artisans have been

I used to think the Silk Road was just one road. Turns out, it was thousands of routes threading through deserts and mountains and cities that don’

I’ve photographed Registan Square maybe a dozen times now, and here’s the thing—it never gets old, but it also never gets easier.

I’ve stood in a lot of madrasahs across Central Asia, but the Abdulaziz Khan in Bukhara—built in the 1650s, give or take—still makes me pause.