Just four hours from Tashkent on the high-speed Afrosiyob train — and you can find yourself in another ancient, yet astonishingly under-visited city of Uzbekistan. Located south of Samarkand and Bukhara, Karshi remains completely untouched by mass tourism, despite being just as old as its famous neighbors and equally rich in history. We strongly recommend adding this place to your itinerary — precisely because it has not yet been “discovered,” while preserving the depth and authenticity that define this region.
Karshi is a city you can comfortably explore on foot in a single day. Moreover, if you don’t linger too long at any one spot, you’ll have enough time to walk from the train station to the Karshi Bridge, seeing most of the major landmarks along the way, then walk back and take the same Afrosiyob back to Tashkent in the evening.
Although Karshi lies slightly off the main route of the Silk Road, an important and lively trade road once ran through it: Bukhara — Karshi — Termez — Balkh (Afghanistan) — Kabul (Afghanistan) — Delhi (India). If you look at a modern road map, you can still recognize this ancient path. It is 163 kilometers from here to Bukhara — a journey caravans made in about seven to eight days. Counting 20–25 kilometers per day (the typical distance a caravan covered), it becomes possible to guess in which towns along the route the caravanserais once stood.
The first fortified settlement in this area appeared roughly ten kilometers away in the 7th century BC — making Karshi about a century younger than Samarkand. The Sogdians called it Navtak, and the Greeks knew it as Eucratideia. Before the Mongol period, names like Nakhshab and Nesef were used. The current name is usually associated with the arrival of Chinggis Khan’s armies: in the Mongolian language of that time, the word karshi meant “palace.” It is believed that the Mongol khan Kebek built himself a palace near old Nakhshab, and the name simply stuck to the city.
The town as we know it emerged in the 14th century and flourished during the Shaybanid era, becoming an important regional center and one of the major trading points along the caravan route. Karshi was also famous for its gardens — a remarkable achievement considering the arid landscape and the fact that the only water source here is the Kashkadarya River.
A string of fascinating landmarks concentrated in a compact area begins with the Bekmir Madrasah, constructed in 1904. A peek through its open door reveals a small inner courtyard. Such courtyards are a quintessential part of traditional Uzbek architecture — found in palaces, caravanserais, madrasahs, and family homes. Windows in Uzbek houses traditionally face only the courtyard, shaded by a wide aywan, while the street-facing walls remain completely blank. Even a century ago, European travelers arriving here were baffled by the endless maze of windowless clay walls. This design was dictated not only by the hot climate but also by the need for defense. Even today, if you wander through the narrow lanes of an old mahalla, you will still encounter such houses — though now built with more modern materials.
Just nearby is one of Karshi’s most remarkable sights — a 14th-century sardoba.
A sardoba is an underground water reservoir — essentially, a water trap. Its purpose is to collect water when it is abundant and keep it from evaporating during the dry months. The source of water might be a natural basin that fills in winter and dries in summer — in that case the sardoba’s pool was dug below the waterline and connected with an underground channel. Some sardobas were fed by springs. In places with no water sources at all — such as desert regions — rainwater was collected through irrigation channels into the sardoba, making it the only source of drinking water for many miles around.
The dome of the sardoba, or gumbaz, is a masterpiece of medieval engineering: specially manufactured bricks laid with a unique mortar, and a meticulously calculated shape that preserved cool temperatures and minimized evaporation. Of course, bacteria would eventually appear in standing water, so it had to be boiled before drinking — but that was still far better than dying of thirst in the desert. The echo inside the dome is extraordinary.
Along the caravan routes of Central Asia, sardobas were as essential as caravanserais. Built at resting points, they served both as water sources and as landmarks in the monotony of the desert. See the small tower above the dome? Besides ventilation, it acted as a beacon visible from afar. Some sardobas even had covered galleries around the perimeter, offering shade for an entire caravan. In the scorching summer months, caravans often traveled at night and slept through the heat in such shelters.
Behind the sardoba stands another intriguing structure — the Odina Mosque and Madrasah. This ensemble is noteworthy because it is the first women’s madrasah and the first women’s mosque in Central Asia, dating back to the 16th century. Inside is a museum dedicated to the Shaybanid dynasty — rulers of the Bukhara Khanate, who succeeded the Timurids and were directly involved in constructing this madrasah.
A bit further along the same street is another small madrasah from the early 20th century — the Kilichboy Madrasah (1911–1914). Across the road is yet another one, the Abdulaziz Khan Madrasah, built around the same time (1909) and in the same style.
Approaching the Kashkadarya River, you’ll find yet another cluster of sites. This area once housed the ruler’s palace and numerous caravanserais; today, a monument to an Uzbek family stands in their place. Yet the main attraction — the one truly worth the trip — is the legendary Karshi Bridge, completed in 1583. How many 16th-century bridges still serve their purpose today? This one does.
Built under the Shaybanids to serve the caravans passing through the city, it was one of the largest bridges in Central Asia. Over the centuries, it has had many names: the Amir Timur Bridge (despite Timur having died 178 years earlier), the Shaybanid Bridge (the most accurate), and even the Nikolaevsky Bridge — though what Nicholas II had to do with it remains unclear. The bridge has been repaired many times due to the turbulent seasonal floods of the river, yet it has survived in its original form. Once, caravans crossed it. Now, you can walk across it yourself.
