Uzbekistan Hotels

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Top Uzbekistan hotels

Tashkent Hotels: 264 Reviews - 578 Photos
Tashkent Hotels: 49 Reviews - 127 Photos
Samarkand Hotels: 302 Reviews - 892 Photos
Khiva Hotels: 160 Reviews - 499 Photos
Samarkand Hotels: 15 Reviews - 28 Photos
Bukhara Hotels: 374 Reviews - 977 Photos
Urganch Hotels: See nearby hotels
Termiz Hotels: 6 Reviews - 4 Photos
Shahrisabz Hotels: 41 Reviews - 96 Photos
Nukus Hotels: 6 Reviews - 10 Photos
Andijon Hotels: 4 Reviews - 5 Photos
Mamut Hotels: See nearby hotels

Uzbekistan Local Customs

one dollar photo of poor Misha

by josephescu

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one dollar photo of poor Misha
by josephescu
3 weddings on the main street
by josephescu
the dance of joy
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Misha & the caretaker
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now 4.....
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Save money, Book now !: Booking.com Excellent choice, Low rates
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Reviews from VirtualTourist Members

An old tradition

by TheWanderingCamel

The name, Timur, Uzbekistan's all-conquering hero and favourite name for newborn baby boys, means "iron" and metalwork of all sorts has a long and illustrious history all through Central Asia. Beautifully wrought metal grilles and screens can still be seen in buildings, bronze ewers and bowls are for sale in the markets along with a fearsome array of knives and blades of all sorts. Once there were dozens of blacksmiths working in Bukhara, some 40 blacksmiths remain. The master blacksmith at the Museum of Metalwork in Bukhara will proudly show you his work - including stork-shaped scissors of amazing sharpness.Chased metal is another ancient craft that hase been revived - these metal crafts suffered as much neglect under the Soviet regime as all the other crafts but Government initiatives actively encourage the re-establishment of centres for teaching and craft museums for study so that...

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Chaps in chapans

by TheWanderingCamel

Older Uzbek men often wear a chapan - a long coat - all year round, lightweight in summer, padded in winter, plain for everyday wear and spendidly striped for best. Whilst young men tend to choose Western (Russian) dress for everyday wear , when mornings start to get chilly many of them join their elders and opt for a traditional thickly padded chapan. You'll see piles of them for sale in bazaars everywhere. They become totally splendid, in velvet encrusted with beautiful gold embroidery, for celebration wear. Again in the bazaars, you'll see mass-produced machine-made versions, but go to the museums and there you will see royal chapans that are worth a king's ransom, so fine and opulent is the bullion work on them. These are known as zarchapanOld photos show the emir's guards and courtiers respendent in brightly coloured silk chapans - what a sight they must have been.

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Magnificent embroidery

by TheWanderingCamel

Embroidery becomes art in Uzbekistan. The wonderfully fine work coupled with an extraordinary sense of design and colour produces work of a vibrancy and beauty that is recognized the world over as unique and very, very special. The term suzane is often used to cover the whole range of embroidery found throughout the region although, to be correct, a suzane is a large wallhanging of a particular construction - a small wall hanging of the same type is known as a nimsuzane and there are many, many other names and types of wall hangings, bedsheets, prayermats and other domestic textiles. All this is of interest really only to collectors and students of this craft - for the average tourist, it is enough to know that these are some of Uzbekistan's greatest treasures. Whether they are the magnificent specimens in the museums, part of a young bride's dowry or bought by a tourist in a Bukhara...

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Growing old

by TheWanderingCamel

Age is no disgrace in Uzbekistan -unlike many western nations. Here to be called an aksakal-a "whitebeard" is a mark of repect, a recognition of one's place as an elder of the family and the community, someone whose opinions are considered important and who has earned the right to sit in the sun with friends and contemporaries, to while away the days with tea, conversation, chess and, if the mood takes you, a snooze. Long may the custom last.

Tying the knot

by TheWanderingCamel

Look beyond the initial kitch appearance of Khiva's wedding palace with its stork over the exit and plastic flowering trees and you will see ancient symbolism here. The little blue tiles inset in the brick walls are ancient Zoroastrian symbols - they were inserted when the palace was built - not as a government building but as the Mohammed Amin Inak Medressah in 1785 - and all around the walls are signs of the Zodiac, astral bodies that carry great weight in this part of the world - nothing is being left to chance in setting each new marriage off on the right track.

The staff of life

by TheWanderingCamel

Uzbek bread , non, baked in a clay oven called a tandir, looks and tastes wonderful, big round golden-brown loaves, highly glazed and decorated with a variety of patterns and maybe seeds in the middle. Each baker has his own pattern, customers are particular about the bread they prefer and no meal is complete without it.Every region has its own variations, and every region thinks theirs is the best. It's said that Timur insisted on bread from his hometown, Shakhrisabz, wherever he was and when the Emir of Bukhara was disapointed with the bread baked for him in Bukhara by Samarkand's best baker, the quick-witted baker saved his skin (Emirs were noted for their quickness to send anyone who displeased then for execution) by saying "But the air here is not Samarkand's air" Bread is treated with great respect, never placed top side down on the table, and never thrown away.

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Green tea, or black?

by TheWanderingCamel

Green tea (kok choy) - this is the tea of hospitality - is the first choice for drinking in Uzbekistan. Black tea (quora choy)is always available though and is the favourite of Tashkenters. Spiced teas are also available in some places - the Silk Road Spices Teahouse in Bukhara has a good range. What you won't get is tea with milk, though lemon and sugar may be possible.Unlike the Middle East, where tea is served in glasses, here it is always served in small china bowls (pyola) from a china teapot 9choynik). The favoured pattern on these is a stylized cotton flower -Uzbekistan's "white gold" - rendered in whilte and gold on a blue background.Traditionally, chaikhanas are men's territory or for family groups - women don't come on their own but women tourists will have no problems - hospitality always comes first in Uzbekistan.

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The chaikhana - a way of life

by TheWanderingCamel

The chaikhana (tea house) is completely central to the Uzbek way of life. Whether it's a shady, green oasis like those around the Lyab-i Khauz in Bukhara or a couple of carpeted low day beds with tables fixed in the middle (a takhta)out under a tree along a country road, elaborately balconied amid thick trees in Samarkand, a swish affair of tented pavilions in a Tashkent park, set down beside a cool canal in Fergana or set inside the walls of Khiva , no day is complete without some time spent sipping tea, talking over whatever needs talking over and watching the world go by.If the chaikhana has a takhta, etiquette dictates that you take your shoes (though not your socks) off before you step onto the carpeted platform to sit crosslegged.When the tea arrives, with small china cups, the custom is to pour some into a cup and then empty it back in the pot and to do this three times -loi, moi,...

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Bride and groom

by TheWanderingCamel

As well as the Western dress for the civil ceremony, if there is to be a traditional wedding celebration, the bride and groom will need the elaborate traditional dress seen here. Many of their friends and family will be dressed in this way too - a splendid sight. The girl here was buying her robe in the market in Tashkent, the "groom" in this instance a tourist inveigled into dressing up for a photo. The gold embroidery on these robes is machine-made, still expensive but nothing like as cripplingly so as the fabulous work that is produced by the master-bullion embroiderers of Bukhara. Gold and silver embroidery is men's work - it's believed that women's hands cause the precious metallic thread to tarnish! Whole sections of the bazaars are given over to wedding finery

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Uzbeck weddings

by TheWanderingCamel

Weddings are a time for great celebration everywhere in Uzbekistan. Often costing a huge amount of money ( a recent presidential decree has called for a reduction in the spending on weddings as costs , and rivalry to put on a bigger and better "do" spiral), a traditional wedding involves at least two days of celebration. A ceremony at the local Wedding Palace fulfills the legal requirements of civil law. For this, the bridal couple dresses in Western style, a suit for him and an fantasy of white dress and veil for her. After the ceremony the whole party goes walkabout around the town, visiting the monuments and places of note, stopping along the way for photos and impromtu dancing.Then comes the real party, and out come the traditional gold-encrusted velvet robes, the best of which are worth a king's ransom. Mountains of food are cooked, with special wedding plov the star dish. Music,...

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Top 3 Hotels in Uzbekistan

Lyabi-House Hotel Bukhara

5 Reviews and 20 Opinions This is where we thought we were staying on our first visit to Bukhara - a charmingly restored old...

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Best Eastern Orient Star Samarkand

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InterContinental Tashkent Tashkent

2 Reviews and 69 Opinions As I know, the InterContinental Hotel is less that Europian standart, but it really good one. There...

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31 Hotels in Uzbekistan

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