Uzbekistan's Silk Road Cities Blend Commerce, Faith, Academia
The Chosun Ilbo · Cho In-won ·
Uzbekistans Silk Road Cities Blend Commerce, Faith, Academia Historical sites reveal how trade taxes funded madrasas, merging commerce and learning
I recently returned from Uzbekistan. A high school friend lives there. We had promised each other for years to visit but kept postponing until I finally took a vacation to meet him. Truthfully, though, it was a country I had always wanted to visit myself. October is said to be the best season in Uzbekistan, and foreign tourists were crowded everywhere, but I went because there were cities and historical sites I desperately wanted to see. Over six days, I quickly toured the cities of Khiva, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent. If you’ve heard these city names before, you’ll know immediately—they are major stops along the Silk Road, stretching from China through Central Asia and the Middle East to Europe, with Istanbul, Turkey, as the final destination.
During my career as a photojournalist, I once had an assignment that took me across China from east to west. I passed through cities like Xi’an (Chang’an) and Kaifeng, visited the Mogao Caves in western China, and traveled through Turpan—paths where Eastern and Western civilizations once exchanged ideas. That was exactly 20 years ago. Before that, I spent a month in Baghdad, Iraq, and later visited Istanbul, Turkey. Every place I went revealed traces and ruins of the Silk Road, making it impossible for me to skip Uzbekistan, located right at the center.
“‘Is it okay to go while there’s a war?’”
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