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 · Nationwide
Tilework (koshinkorlik)
Glazed ceramic tiles, koshin, that sheathed the domes and portals of Timurid Samarkand and Bukhara, and later of Khiva.
Photo: Humoyun Mehridinov · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
How koshin is made
Koshin (parchin) is a thin glazed ceramic tile made for facing buildings. It is pressed from a special clay in moulds, fired at up to 1150°C, painted, glazed and fired again, with a roughened back so that it grips the wall.
Glazed tiles appeared in Central Asia in the late 12th or early 13th century, first on monuments in Samarkand, Bukhara and Kunya-Urgench, and peaked under the Timurids. Several techniques can be seen side by side: carved glazed terracotta at Shah-i-Zinda; tile mosaic of individually cut coloured pieces at the Registan and Gur-e Amir; majolica, painted on white slip under glaze; and banna’i, in which giant geometric patterns and inscriptions are built from alternating glazed and plain bricks.
The restorers, and Khiva
By the 19th century many of the old secrets had been lost. In 1930 a restoration workshop was set up in Samarkand’s Tilya-Kori Madrasa to rediscover the original glaze colours, and parts of the domes and portals of the Registan, Bibi-Khanym, Gur-e Amir and Shah-i-Zinda were restored by its craftsmen. In Khiva, 19th-century blue-and-white majolica sets the colour of Itchan Kala’s streets. As you explore, ask your guide which parts are original and which restored.
Photos
Craft · Bukhara
Gijduvan ceramics
Pottery from Gijduvan near Bukhara, glazed in browns, yellows and greens — the best-known centre of the Bukhara–Samarkand school.
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 · 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 · 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 · 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 · 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.