Islam Karimov Street (formerly Tashkent Street)

An ancient trading street

This is one of Samarkand's oldest thoroughfares: since medieval times it has been lined with merchants' stalls, craftsmen's workshops, madrasas and mosques. Under Russian rule it was known as Siab Street, after the bazaar it led to, and from Soviet times as Tashkent Street. In spring 2017 it was renamed after Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan's first president and a native of Samarkand — though visitors and many locals still call it Tashkent Street.

The street starts at Registan Street, runs north-east across the ancient site of Afrasiyab and, after three kilometres, meets the city ring road.

From traffic to pedestrians

In Soviet times trolleybuses and buses ran here, and taxis and horse-carts until the mid-2000s. In 2009 the main stretch between the Registan and Bibi-Khanym was turned into a pedestrian zone, lined with new low-rise commercial buildings so that the two great monuments are joined by a single promenade. By 2017 nearly half of the remaining street had also been pedestrianised; electric buggies shuttle visitors, and a footbridge carries the walkway over Shah-i-Zinda Street.

Today the street is lined with souvenir and craft shops and cafés.

Along the way

Walking from south to north you pass the Registan and the Sher-Dor Madrasa, the Chorsu trading dome, the Bibi-Khanym Mosque and Mausoleum, and then Siyob Bazaar. Carry on and you reach the Hazrat Khizr Mosque, the mausoleum of Islam Karimov and the Afrasiyab Museum. The Registan-to-bazaar stretch takes 15–20 minutes at a stroll.

Photographs from the early 20th century show the same street crammed with stalls, with the dome of Chorsu at its Registan end: for centuries it linked the trading on Registan Square with the bazaar at the foot of Bibi-Khanym. It remains the city's busiest promenade — tour groups by day, and in the evening local families and young people strolling beneath the floodlit domes.