Chust District

Location and history

Chust District was formed on 29 September 1926. It borders Turakurgan District to the east, Kosonsoy to the north-east, Pop to the south and west, Mingbuloq to the south-east and Kyrgyzstan to the north. It covers 920 km² and has the largest population of any district in the region. It lies on foothills and plains below the Chatkal mountains, crossed by the Govasoy, Olmossoy and Rezaksoy streams; the Chust Canal, built in 1947, carries water from the Kosonsoy Reservoir 58 km to the village of Olmos.

Chust is one of the oldest towns in the valley: a settlement studied here in the 1950s and 1960s gave its name to the Chust culture of roughly 1500–900 BC. In the Middle Ages Chust was a fortress, and Babur's father, Umar Shaikh Mirza, made it his residence in 1480.

What it is known for

Chust knives are famous across Uzbekistan and have been shown at international exhibitions; the town has long had a quarter of bladesmiths. Chust skullcaps won acclaim at exhibitions in New Delhi, Montreal, Tokyo and Poznań in 1968–1970. The district's Chust natural monument was set up in 1990 to protect beneficial insects.