Editor’s note: this is the second article of TRT writer Sam Spector’s journey to Uzbekistan. Click here to read the first, about Tashkent. If these two pieces don’t make you want to make this trip, nothing will! For more of Sam’s amazing adventures, click here to visit his index page.

Outside of Uzbekistan, if people have heard of one Silk Road city, it is typically Samarkand, and deservedly so with its impressive Registan Square and many tourist attractions. It is the third largest city in Uzbekistan with a metropolitan population of a million people and is a city that continues to expand and is within a couple hours of the capital, Tashkent. However, when talking to people who actually spend significant time exploring Uzbekistan, what I consistently heard was that the city of Bukhara blows Samarkand out of the water. Bukhara, with 280,000 people, is much less known internationally, but while Samarkand feels like a big city that has impressive sights within it, the entire town of Bukhara feels like an attraction in itself.

Truth be told, Bukhara is the main reason that I have wanted to visit Uzbekistan for several years now. With a Jewish community dating back 2500 years, Bukhara has possibly the oldest continuous Jewish population in the world. During the Silk Road days, the influence of Bukhara’s Jewish culture led to Jews throughout Central Asia being referred to as “Bukharan Jews.” In this city, the Jews once made up a sizeable and prominent community, but today make up a mere few hundred individuals while their global population numbers 320,000, with approximately half these in New York and the other half in Israel. Today, there are still two synagogues in use in Bukhara. The main one that people visit is in the heart of the Old Town right off the Labi-hafz pool and contains a Torah scroll that they still read from that is over 1000 years old. According to legend, when the amir of the kingdom was building Labi-hafz, he compensated the people who were displaced to make the pool. However, one Jewish lady demanded that instead of being compensated that the amir build a synagogue for her community and that she would only move if he did so.

A bit away from the Old Town is another synagogue in the old Jewish Quarter and a sprawling Jewish cemetery with graves that, unlike Samarkand’s Jewish cemetery, appear more in a traditional Jewish style (flat, Jerusalem stone, raised above ground) and less of a Soviet one (tall, vertical pillar that often has the picture of the deceased on it). While the Uzbek government changed most street names to reflect Uzbek identity, the main one in the Jewish Quarter is called Shalom Aleichem, the original name. As a Jewish traveler, it was meaningful to go to an area, though it is now not overtly Jewish, that played such an important role in the development of Jewish culture.

I mentioned the Labi-hafz, a pool created by the amir as a water cistern. There used to be many of these pools throughout Bukhara, but they became cesspools of disease and bacteria, causing many Bukharans to die in their early 30s. The British drained these pools as a result, but this one was maintained and cleaned. Today, Labi-hafz is surrounded by medieval madrassahs and cafes and is a frequent spot for swans to visit. A short walk away are numerous covered areas that once were marketplaces but today are full of souvenir shops often selling antiques from the area and clothing items. If you want to splurge on a souvenir, Bukhara is famous for handwoven rugs of a particular “Bukharan style” which, though they cost at minimum hundreds of dollars, are still significantly cheaper than they would be in the United States. The Bukharan style includes a pattern called “elephant’s foot” with patterns resembling the foot of an elephant. We purchased our rug, made from the hair of a baby camel, from a store worth visiting called Bukhara Silk Carpets, a giant space with a large variety of rugs. The real highlight of the store though is the owner, Sabina, who at age 12 was selling rugs on the street and is an 8th generation rug salesperson. By her 30th birthday, she already had six children (I forget how many she has now) and she speaks over a dozen languages. She will not only teach you in depth about the rugs but will be direct on her opinions, which I appreciate.

Right by Sabina’s store is the main attraction of Bukhara, which is its Kalyan Minaret, dating back to 1127 CE with a beautiful design. With a width of 30 feet and a height of 157 feet (with an additional 30 feet underground as a base), this minaret is a marvel today, but all the more so at the time it was built. When Genghis Khan came through Bukhara, he destroyed the whole town; however, even Genghis Khan recognized the minaret as something special. According to legend, he tried to look up to the top of it and his hat fell off; he therefore decided to spare the minaret and to keep it as a landmark that he could see from a distance. Next to the minaret is the Po-i Kalyan, a mosque complex that is lit up beautifully at night. In front of many of the grand mosques and madrassahs of Bukhara, you will see light displays at night, and then during the day will be people dressed in traditional garb dancing and singing.

Not far away from the Kalyan Minaret is the second main attraction of the city, the Ark of Bukhara. The Ark is the wall of the Old City, but is built differently than other old city walls elsewhere in the world. The wall curves and bends in an archaeological and design masterpiece. Just beyond the wall was where the amir conducted business at the main gate to the city, and there is a prison cell where he famously jailed, tortured, and then executed two 19th century British emissaries. A short car ride away you can see how the emirs lived by visiting their summer palace, Sitorai Morkhi-Khosa. The palace has many different halls and houses that are reminiscent of a smaller version of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul for those who have been. In the various spaces is a museum of the clothing, possessions, furniture, and interior design of the time. Outside in the gardens are numerous peacocks strolling about that can be fed. My favorite spot in the palace was a beautiful, large pool in front of the main living quarter of the amir. The story goes that he would have the women of his harem swim in the pool while he watched from his balcony. When he selected one that he wanted to take to bed with him that evening, he would throw an apple at her to make his choice known (my wife sternly told me that throwing fruit at her would not give me the same end result).

Uzbekistan is full of beautiful turquoise-domed mosques, madrassahs, and mausoleums, which honestly start to blend together not unlike churches in Europe after a while. However, in Bukhara, one simple structure stands apart from others and is worth a quick visit, and that is the Chor Minor (meaning four minarets). This small mosques has four towers protruding from its corners, though it is thought these were actually for grain storage rather than minarets. If nothing else, a quick visit to this place will break up the repetitiveness of the designs of the other grander structures.

Finally, while in Bukhara, make sure to relax and not take things as fast-paced as in the bigger cities of Tashkent or Samarkand. When having a drink, eating an ice cream, sipping a coffee, smoking a hookah, or enjoying a good meal, be sure to take in all of the designs and architecture that surround you, and in particular overlook the Kalyan Minaret at a rooftop restaurant. Our top restaurant choice was Ayvan, near the center of the Old Town down an alleyway. This modern take on traditional Bukharan food is in the Lyabi Hotel in a courtyard surrounded by 19th century Bukharan houses. The restaurant itself has preserved that 19th century style inside and on its balcony overlooking the courtyard, and was the home of a prominent Jewish merchant when it was constructed.

While Tashkent and Samarkand will give you an insight into Uzbekistan today and its grandeur from the days of Amir Timur, to really capture the feeling of the Silk Road and experience antiquity in modernity, make sure you give yourself a couple days to become enchanted by Bukhara.

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