6 reasons to visit Khiva, Uzbekistan

The Silk Boulevard metropolis of Khiva in Uzbekistan is usually described as a living museum. Wisely-preserved cobbled streets, clay mosques and majestic fortress partitions evoke the spirit of the Silk Boulevard and its caravans, which once passed thru in sizable numbers. This twelve months, Khiva fought off competitors from the likes of Abu Dhabi, Lagos in Nigeria and Urfa in Turkey to be named 2024 Tourism Capital of the Islamic World. The resolution turned into made by the 57 international locations that belong to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an intergovernmental organisation that’s striven to be the collective train of the Muslim world since the 1960s. The OIC has a history of selecting lesser-visited destinations similar to Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and Gabala, in Azerbaijan, for this annual award, serving to to boost their tourism pattern and visibility seriously. Right here’s why 2024 is the time to visit Khiva. 

1. UNESCO-listed architecture

Khiva’s Itchan Kala, the walled metropolis, is a UNESCO World Heritage Situation and one in every of essentially the most easy preserved and most spectacular destinations on the Silk Boulevard. Based some 2,500 years ago, this starting up-air museum is a labyrinth of streets lined with dozens of intricately embellished monuments, most of which date from the 14^th to the 19^th centuries. Khiva’s architectural highlights encompass the 185ft-high Islam Khoja Minaret, with its alternating rings of glazed blue tiles and sand-coloured bricks; the 160-room Tash Khauli Palace, built for 18^th-century ruler Allah Kuli Khan; and the easy yet ravishing Juma Mosque, the roof of which is supported by 213 elm columns, each and every carved by a selected craftsman.

2. Links with historical figures

Tale has it that Khiva turned into based by Shem, one in every of the sons of Noah, the Former Testament prophet simplest known for his ark. What’s more with out issues verifiable by historians, alternatively, is the metropolis’s connection to necessary characters from the medieval world. The ninth-century polymath Al-Khwarizmi, who’s usually described because the father of algebra and provides his name to the scientific term ‘algorithm’, turned into born here, as turned into Pahlavon Mahmud, a poet and wrestler whose superhuman strength remains to be considerable from Turkey to India, even 800 years after his loss of life. Inevitably, there are villains within the metropolis’s long history, too: Khiva turned into conquered by each and every Genghis Khan and Nadir Shah, a sturdy but brutal ruler of Iran.

3. Various cultural programmes

With a backdrop as dramatic and historic because the Itchan Kala, it’s no shock Khiva hosts fairs and other cultural events all twelve months long. Highlights of the annual programme encompass Navruz (or Nowruz), the inclined Persian-Turkic Original Year, which is noticed on 21 March, the spring equinox; the World Lazgi Dance Festival, a birthday party of an bright inclined dance form inscribed by UNESCO on its Intangible Cultural Heritage checklist; and the precisely named Pahlavon Mahmud Strongmen Games, where athletes from spherical the enviornment compete in extreme strength challenges similar to lifting atlas stones and dragging broad anchors.

4. Preservation of cultural heritage

Khiva turned into the predominant UNESCO World Heritage Situation in Central Asia, and sizable efforts believe been made to preserve the metropolis’s historic centre. It’s no point out feat to steadiness residents’ demands for fashionable conveniences with UNESCO’s conservation necessities. The entire of the Itchan Kala is now automobile-free and, everywhere in the pandemic, local authorities took profit of the lull in tourism to bury all electricity cables and water and gasoline pipes underground, and to repave the beforehand uneven streets with dazzling flagstones. Quite rather a lot of the smaller monuments believe been sensitively converted into handicrafts workshops and bazaars, besides to cafes, eating locations and accommodations, with the rental profits from these corporations paying for the maintenance of this treasured historical situation.

5. Uncommon locations to stop

Visitors to Khiva are spoilt for preference when it comes to accommodation alternate solutions, which vary from family-race guesthouses to the four-considerable particular person Farovon Khiva Resort. Nonetheless within the occasion you’re wanting for cultural authenticity and charm, essentially the most easy locations to stop are boutique properties in and spherical the Itchan Kala. Orient Critical particular person Khiva Resort characteristic a trend for the conversion of madrassas (Islamic universities) into easy heritage accommodations, and the still faintly monastic atmosphere of accommodations similar to Muso To’ra and Feruzkhan is terribly one thing to ride. In the occasion you desire a minute bit more luxurious, alternatively, Singaporean media personality Timothy W Lunge opened his first resort, Resort Bankir Khiva, here in 2023. Timothy has a aptitude for internal invent, and the roof terrace has panoramic views of the Itchan Kala.

6. Ease of visiting

Uzbekistan has stripped encourage its forms in most up-to-date years and larger than 90 nationalities — together with all UK and EU passport holders — can now enter the nation visa-free for up to 30 days. It’s possible you’ll perchance well perhaps perhaps fly deliver from London to Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, 3 times a week with nationwide provider Uzbekistan Airways; or you may perhaps perhaps perchance well perhaps perhaps also route through Istanbul and land at Urgench in western Uzbekistan, whereby case the airport is good a 25-minute drive away from Khiva. British tour operators similar to Wild Frontiers and Trotting Soles offer small community and tailored tours, and as English is an increasing form of widely spoken, in particular amongst Uzbekistan’s childhood and these working within the tourism sector, communicating with locals in Khiva is easy, too.