Traveling around Uzbekistan

Walking Through Centuries Inside Itchan Kala’s Mud-Brick Fortress Walls I’ve walked through maybe a dozen UNESCO sites, and none felt quite

I never thought I’d spend a Tuesday night cross-referencing Ottoman-era tile patterns with Soviet-era survey maps, but here we are. Khiva’

I used to think mosques were all about delicate minarets and quiet prayer halls. Then I stood in front of Bibi Khanym in Samarkand, and honestly, the sheer

The first time I stood at the edge of Kitab’s fossil canyons, I honestly thought someone had taken a geological textbook and just—carved it into the hillside.

I used to think fabric art was just, you know, quilts your grandmother made. Then I spent three weeks in Bukhara’s old city, watching a seventy-two-year-old

I used to think historical hotels were just old buildings with fancy doors. Then I spent three days in Khiva’s Ichan-Kala district, sleeping in a

I used to think basket weaving was just something people joked about as an easy college course. Then I watched Rustam Karimov’s hands move through

I used to think ancient walls were just piles of mud bricks that somehow survived because nobody bothered knocking them down. Then I spent three days in

I used to think ancient sites were all about crumbling columns and faded mosaics, the kind of ruins you see on postcards. Then I spent three weeks in Uzbekistan’

I didn’t expect to feel anything walking into the Bukhara Art Gallery on a Tuesday afternoon. But there’s something disorienting about standing