Craft · Bukhara
Bukhara gold embroidery
Embroidery in gold and silver thread on velvet and silk — the art of the Bukhara emirs’ court and still the city’s most precious craft.
Craft · Bukhara
Gijduvan ceramics
Pottery from Gijduvan near Bukhara, glazed in browns, yellows and greens — the best-known centre of the Bukhara–Samarkand school.
Photo: Ekaterina Kvelidze · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Warm colours
Gijduvan, northeast of Bukhara, is a centre of the Bukhara–Samarkand pottery school, known for lead glazes and a warm palette. Gijduvan platters and bowls are dominated by brown, yellow and green, decorated with plant motifs — flowers, tendrils and star-shaped rosettes — and the glazes run and blend so that no two pieces are alike.
The town’s pottery dynasties, above all the Narzullayev family, have kept the tradition going for generations; their family house-museum shows old and new wares, the kiln and the workshop.
Getting there
Gijduvan lies on the Bukhara–Navoiy road, making it an easy half-day trip from Bukhara or a stop on the way to Samarkand. At the workshop you can watch the potter, try your own hand at the clay and buy pieces, then lunch on the town’s famous kebab. In 2023 Uzbekistan’s ceramic arts were inscribed on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list.
Photos
Craft · Bukhara
Suzani and Bukhara embroidery
Large hand-embroidered hangings called suzani; the Bukhara school is known for fine designs covering almost the whole cloth in reds and greens on a pale ground.
Craft · Fergana
Rishtan ceramics
The blue and turquoise pottery of Rishtan in the Fergana Valley, famed for its ishkor glaze made from plant ash and its local red clay.
Craft · Fergana
Margilan atlas and adras
Margilan’s ikat silks: pure-silk atlas and half-silk adras. UNESCO recognises the town’s work to safeguard them as a model practice.
Craft · Khorezm
Khiva woodcarving
The carved doors and columns of Itchan Kala: Khiva’s carvers never paint the wood, finishing it only with natural oil; the Juma Mosque alone has more than 200 columns.
Craft · Namangan
Chust knives
Hand-forged knives from Chust in Namangan Region: a blade with a slightly upturned tip, the maker’s stamped ‘signature’ and a decorated sheath.
Craft · Namangan
Chust doppi (skullcap)
The four-sided Chust skullcap, with white pepper-pod motifs on dark green, is the best-known emblem of Uzbek dress — and every oasis has its own doppi.
Craft · Samarkand
Samarkand paper
Paper made from mulberry bark — the finest writing material of the 9th–10th-century Islamic world, revived at Konigil at the end of the 20th century.
Craft · Navoiy
Nurata suzani
Embroideries from Nurata in Navoiy Region: realistic sprays of carnations, irises, cotton flowers and cherries on a pale ground around a central eight-pointed star.
Craft · Samarkand
Samarkand and Urgut suzani
Big red-and-black circles and rosettes on white define the Samarkand school; Urgut is a living embroidery centre and a favourite bazaar for suzani hunters.