Traveling around Uzbekistan

I used to think cooking classes were just tourist traps until I found myself in a Khiva courtyard at 6 a.m., watching a grandmother named Bibi-oy knead

I didn’t expect to care about youth theater in Tashkent, honestly. But here’s the thing—something genuinely weird and compelling is happening

I’ve stood in front of a lot of old towers, but the Kalyan Minaret hits different. The thing climbs 48 meters into the sky—that’

I used to think the term ‘Sephardic’ only applied to Spanish Jews, until I started digging into Bukhara’s winding alleyways.

I used to think Soviet architecture was all gray concrete blocks and utilitarian misery, but then I saw the Friendship Palace in Tashkent.

I used to think necropolises were just graveyards with better PR. Then I stood at the edge of Chor Bakr, five kilometers west of Bukhara, and realized I’

The clock stopped at 5:23 AM. I’ve visited a lot of earthquake memorials—Tokyo, San Francisco, that haunting site in Spitak, Armenia—but the Tashkent

Khiva sits in the middle of the Kyzylkum Desert, which means your trip will be defined by heat. I’ve been to Uzbekistan three times now, and each

The Syrdarya snakes through Central Asia like a vein nobody talks about anymore. I first heard about the northern stretches of the Syrdarya River Valley

I used to think all Uzbek folk music sounded basically the same—rhythmic, passionate, strung together on long-necked instruments I couldn’