Tashkent: history, etymology, and interesting facts

The name Tashkent derives from Turkic tash (stone) + kent (town) — 'the stone town'. Its earlier names have all meant essentially the same thing: the Sogdian Chach and its Arabic-Persian derivative Shash both refer to a stone-walled settlement. The current name — Tashkent — became standard from about the 11th century, with the Turkic settlement of the region.

In Uzbek Latin the modern spelling is Toshkent. In Chinese sources from the Tang dynasty the city appears as Shíguó (石国) — literally 'Stone Kingdom' — the same meaning again.

Tashkent's oasis, watered by the Chirchiq River (a tributary of the Syr Darya), has been settled since at least the 2nd century BCE. It appears in Chinese and Sogdian sources as one of the important Silk Road stops connecting the Ferghana Valley with Sogdiana. Under the Karakhanids in the 11th–12th centuries it became a major regional centre; it was destroyed by the Mongols in 1220 and rebuilt in the Timurid period.

In 1865 Russian troops under General Chernyayev captured Tashkent. From this point Tashkent became the administrative capital of Russian Turkestan and the biggest single Russian city east of the Caucasus. The colonial-era 'New City' — Alexander II's imperial grid of tree-lined avenues, Orthodox cathedrals, and pastel plaster mansions — was built alongside (rather than on top of) the medieval Uzbek 'Old City' around Chorsu.

On the morning of 26 April 1966, a magnitude 5.2 earthquake with unusually shallow focus struck Tashkent. Casualties were relatively low (around 15 killed) but the damage to the old adobe buildings of the city was massive — over 300,000 people were left homeless and about a third of the old town was destroyed.

The Soviet response was extraordinary. Every Soviet republic sent construction brigades. Within four years, 100,000 new apartments had been built, along with new schools, a modern water system, wide new boulevards, and — from 1977 onward — the Tashkent Metro, the first metro line in Central Asia. The city that resulted is one of the finest examples of coherent Brezhnev-era Soviet urban planning in existence.

For architectural travellers this is one of the most interesting single cities on the Silk Road: a compact old town of tiled mosques and courtyards, laid alongside a Russian imperial grid of 1870s-1900s mansions, laid alongside a Soviet-modernist central city of 1960s-1980s brutalism and mosaic-clad monumental architecture.

The Tashkent Metro deserves its own paragraph. Opened in 1977, it now has four lines and 50 stations. Because of Cold War-era secrecy rules, photography inside the stations was forbidden until 2018. Some stations — Kosmonavtlar (a mosaic hall dedicated to Soviet space heroes), Alisher Navoi (Persian miniature-style tilework), Pakhtakor (cotton-blossom themes) — are among the finest examples of decorative Soviet architecture anywhere. Rides cost roughly 15 US cents.

The Old City around Chorsu bazaar survives as a functioning working neighbourhood despite the 1966 earthquake and Soviet redevelopment. Its centrepiece is Chorsu — one of the largest and best-preserved covered bazaars in Central Asia, under an aqua-tiled dome roughly 100 metres across.

A five-minute walk east is Khast Imam, the religious heart of Tashkent. The complex houses the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan, the country's most important madrasa, and — critically — the Uthman Quran (Mus'haf of Uthman), one of the earliest surviving Quran manuscripts in the world, dated to the 7th–8th century. It is one of only a handful of copies of the original Uthmanic recension.

Modern Tashkent is a compact, walkable, green, and unusually clean capital by regional standards. Old town, Russian imperial grid, and Soviet modernist central district are all inside a 45-minute walk. New town — the Tashkent International Financial Centre and the Yashnabad district — is a growing skyline of glass-and-steel towers to the east. Tashkent's public parks (Amir Timur, Ecoparks along the Anhor canal) are excellent, and the surrounding Chatkal mountains (Chimgan, Charvak) are easily reached for a weekend.

Almost every visitor to Uzbekistan starts and ends in Tashkent, whether they realise it or not — the country's main international airport is here. A day at the start of a trip is a wise investment.