Two Days in Tashkent: Magical Shade of Blue

Day No.1 Chorsu Bazaar

Approaching Chorsu Bazaar, you can already see those blue halos rising from the streets like mountains. The sun bears down, the light is impossibly bright. This seems to be the first thing you adjust to on your first day in Uzbekistan.

The bazaar itself is divided into sections: spices, nuts, meat, fruits, vegetables. The smell of spices reaches you first. The stalls unfold before you in an extraordinary palette of textures and colors: earthy reds, deep ochres, and pale greens, all open to the air. I noticed handmade spice sets, dozens of varieties arranged together.

You lift your head, and there they are, those endless floral ornaments: on the facades of buildings, tucked into a corner of an archway, pressed into a tile you almost walked past. Wherever you look in Tashkent, some small detail is waiting to be found. And the more you find, the more you notice. The more you notice, the more the city stops feeling foreign, until at some point, without quite realizing it, you feel that you belong here.

Every so often, someone would pass with a cart of flatbreads, pausing now and then to draw a small crowd before moving on. And so it continues, one cart after the next. The air is thick with the heavy scent of the Uzbek flatbread called non, which is traditionally baked in a tandoor oven. Depending on the ingredients, shape, and region, there are two main types of it: an obi-non: a regular, simple flatbread, and a patyr, a festive, richer bread. From the shape I can tell that today’s cart’s bread is specifically a patyr one. ”Next time I come, I'll learn how to bake them”, I think. I must remember to buy the carved wooden stamps for the patterns on the bread. Remember it too.

Outside, there's a plant section, entire rows of houseplants, and crowds of people. Everyone is going somewhere. A charming caravan of women in floral hijabs sweeps past. Men are rushing.

I wandered through the bazaar and stepped into a small local shop, where I bought a black-and-white embroidered Uzbek vest. The shop owner watched me with evident delight, and called over her son, whose clothing stall was next door. The two of them stood there together, watching each vest I hold up against myself, commenting quietly to each other. There was something hillarious and very tender about it: being dressed by a family, in a bazaar, in a city I have only just arrived in.

The mid-morning heat has been built by the time I left the bazaar, and turned toward the old city.

Kokaldash Madrasah

One of the most important historical schools of Islamic studies and a beautiful example of traditional brick architecture and blue majolica decoration. The central courtyard is peaceful, the facade is imposing. Since 1999, an Islamic educational institution under the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan has been operating in this building.