First Days Tashkent: Walking Tour of Uzbekistan’s MOST Underrated City 🇺🇿 PART 1

Welcome to Tashkent, the underrated capital of Uzbekistan. While many travelers pass through on their way to the silk road gems like Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva, Tashkent often gets overlooked. But this city has its own unique character and is absolutely worth a few days of your trip. Tashkent offers a fascinating mix of brutalist Soviet architecture, beautifully restored Islamic landmarks and classical Russian influences, creating a cityscape unlike anywhere else in the country. The city center is surprisingly green with leafy parks, cozy squares and plenty of charming cafes and restaurants to explore. It's the perfect place to get a real sense of Uzbek life and a great spot to unwind if you're feeling tiled out after visiting Uzbekistan's iconic monuments. In today's vlog we'll show you around Tashkent, taking in some of its highlights, and sharing why this city deserves a spot on your itinerary. So stick with us as we explore the Independence Square and there are like a lot of official buildings around here and behind me you can see the Asgulik Arch. In the evening it gets very pretty and they do like a whole water show here in the fountains. So let's go check out the park. For some reason the people in Tashkent, they love white cars. You see them all over the place and all of them are for some reason Chevrolet's. There must be a reason for that which we don't know yet, but it's kind of funny. We do advise after you come from the Independence Square to walk a little bit further to the park because there you will find the Memorial Square with a monument in honor of the Second World War for people that fought during that time. And as you can see behind me you have like different alleys that are filled with the names of people that fought and died during the war and they're arranged by from where they come from within Uzbekistan. What are you eating? Shibureki. So this is actually, it's called shirazamza, but it reminds us a lot of the shibureki that we know. It's just like filled dough basically, some kind of a dumpling or fried bread with a filling. And this one has meat, onion and some cumin inside as well. You can't see it as well, but it's super yummy. So we came back for more. That's what Ferik is having right now. So we're now just walking around the Amir Timur Square. There are a few really beautiful buildings around. We have no idea what they are, but we want to check them out a bit more. But then we're walking towards the Hotel Uzbekistan and we might still end up in the Museum of Amir Timur, which is supposedly beautiful, but no. So we just passed through a very popular pedestrian area, which comes alive at night. Yeah, it's still daylight, but you can already go there for really yummy somsas, which are fried filled doughy pastries. And they usually are filled with meat and onions and all sorts of things. It was a really yummy snack in between because I was getting hungry. And now we're at the Amir Timur Square, where you can see his statue behind me. And he meant a lot for the Uzbekistan civilization and for the people. There's also a museum of him a little bit further down, which we probably will still check out today. And the last thing you can see behind me is the famous Uzbekistan Hotel, which is one of the last buildings in the city in Soviet style. Our first real Uzbek plov. We're excited. The portion is bigger than we expected because Moritz was already afraid we were gonna be still hungry afterwards. He was already making plans of getting extra snacks. It's really good. Yeah, it looks good. Let's try how it is. Indeed. Okay, try for me. You let me know. Not dry. Is it like juicy? What is the meat, you think? Rather than ask. But he's happy. It's super juicy. You can see like some chickpeas here. Especially like raisins. I think it's raisins. Yeah, it looks like it. Like pieces of, you know, like veggies, other things. So today is our second day in Tashkent and we're out exploring. Yes, we came this morning to the Hazrat-i-Imam complex, which you can see around us. It has multiple buildings you can explore and one of them being a mosque holding a 17th century old Koran, which is really worth checking out. So that's where we're heading now. And we already can tell that there's way more tourists here than we're used to in Kazakhstan in those almost two weeks. It was two weeks that we did in Kazakhstan and we never saw any tourists actually there if you compare it to here. And here you have those typical groups of 20-30 people. You have buses, vans. So everything is really full of tourists and to be honest we're not used to it. No, indeed. So we actually thought we kind of came early. It opens at nine. We were a little bit after that here, but it's already filled. So we will have to do some early days from now on and really get out when there's no tourists yet. Yeah, a little bit of adjustment. So far we can already tell the architecture is so beautiful. The amount of details. I couldn't stop watching where we were inside in the Hazrat-i-Imam. It was so beautiful. All the little mosaics. The colorful tiles. And yeah, just the eye for detail is extraordinary. And this is just Tashkent yet. So we'll see what we have for us coming in Samarkand, Bukhara and Khyber. Yeah. Since yeah, this is just the capital basically. And the other ones are supposed to be even more beautiful, but we're super impressed already. Indeed. So we just came out of which holds one of the oldest Korans. It's from the seventh century. It's humongous. We were so surprised to see its size. And the coolest part actually is that the pages are made out of gazelle skin. So that was an interesting fact. So the entrance price is 40,000 som, which is around 3 euros for foreigners, which is rather high, what to say, compared to other entrances here. And also because it's rather small. Also you can't film or take pictures inside, especially of the Koran itself. And if you want to film inside, we saw outside it said you have to pay 3 million som actually, which is a ridiculous amount. So yeah, I'd be careful with that. Also, so you have the main Koran is in the middle. It's really beautifully displayed and around you have like little chambers with more old Korans all over. And one room holds like Korans in all different kind of languages. We even spotted like German, Dutch, Japanese. So that's really interesting to see as well. So there's actually a little building just dedicated to Korans. So tell me about the little Koran that you saw in there. Oh yeah, we totally forgot to mention that there are like a few miniature Korans. Like they really fit in your pocket. It's super cute. They're rather recent, I think from 2009. But it was funny to see. Way to the big famous bazaar here in Tashkent called Khorsu Bazaar. And they have all kinds of products, the daily products that people need here, like vegetables and all. But you can also eat there. So we're curious to see what they have. We might take some snacks. And most importantly, we're also on the hunt for souvenirs again. We might already check it out what they have here. trying the bread. And it's so delicious. Like I didn't expect this kind of flavor. It's super yummy. It's like fresh, hot. And just the taste is so good. So we're just outside now of the Kokeldash Madrasa, which is actually like a former higher educational institution. Those are basically madrasas. They used to be institutions of education. Not all of them are active anymore. But this one actually is. So you can go inside. There's a way to go to a little viewpoint on the top. But you can't fully go in because at the moment they're still teaching. Throughout time, the building was not in use and was also neglected. For example, during the 16th century, I believe, it was also a caravanserai, which means it was to place like travelers and merchants to keep them like a base to sleep. And other times it was just fully neglected and as well damaged. So it got rebuilt. And now it's back to its former glory and back to a house of teachings. So to enter, you have to pay an entrance fee of 10,000 som, which is really worth it. The courtyard when you come in is so lush. We didn't expect it. It's beautifully done with flowers and all kinds of trees. So it's really beautiful. And like I said, you have a little viewpoint if you go up the stairs to see over the courtyard as well as the streets, which is a little bit less interesting. But yeah, it's definitely worth stopping by. Quickly, I wanted to mention the dress code when you visit these Islamic buildings or like the madrasas, the mosques, everything. So of course, you have to be respectable and cover up a little bit, which means actually definitely your shoulders and your knees, preferably actually long sleeve and always carry like a scarf with you because women do need to often put something around them. They don't always ask it, but out of respect, put something on. And at some places you even have like scarves or like cloaks available that you can just lend and put on, but don't always expect it. So we do suggest to bring something to cover up. Also for or third dinner here in Tashkent, but it's our second plop that we're going to try. And it looks really yummy. So again, you can really see the difference with the Kazakh style. There's a lot of legumes in there. I still don't know what these are, but like there are raisins in there. This one has carrots. So this is how it looks like. Let's try a bit. Also super like, definitely not dry. Very nice. A bit less fatty than the one from yesterday. Time to begin.