Sukok

Sukok lies at the foot of the mountains, believed to be one of the most ancient settlements in the Tashkent region. The village’s outer street, lined with houses on both sides, winds its way up to a gate leading into the forest, which is part of the Chatkal Biosphere Reserve. This forest, planted in the 1930s, predominantly features coniferous trees, especially Crimean pines, alongside poplars, nut trees, apricots, cherries, and plums. Up the Sukoksay, remnants of ancient mining operations and furnaces from the Bronze Age can still be found.

In 1992, this mountain village gained cinematic fame as the backdrop for the Uzbek-Turkish film “They Are People Too,” featuring the well-known actress Matlyuba Alimova, who played the role of Nastya in the film “The Return of Budulay.” Many local residents participated as extras in the film, further intertwining Sukok’s charm with the arts.

The homes in Sukok, with their solid mud-brick walls, are traditionally built closely together. Unlike the flatland villages, these houses ascend the mountainside in tiers, often featuring two or even three stories. The second floor typically boasts open verandas sheltered by awnings. Today, the narrow and steep streets are crisscrossed with a dense network of electrical wires and thin metal pipes intended for natural gas supply. Inside the homes, you will find traditional clay tandoors for baking bread over wood fires, alongside modern heating devices and water heaters powered by gas cylinders.

Surrounding Sukok are hundreds of hectares of vineyards and orchards. The primary occupation of the local population, as in the rest of the Parkent District, is viticulture. However, in this village, shepherds also spend the winter, and many courtyards house extensive livestock pens, sheepfolds, and chicken coops. In Tashkent, “Sukok shashlik” has become a romantic culinary brand, as the local sheep graze on hundreds of plant species, including medicinal herbs, resulting in particularly tender and flavorful meat that is even considered to have healing properties. In reality, it is quite challenging to distinguish the taste of Sukok shashlik from that of lamb grilled in any shashlik house in the district center of Parkent, and it often comes at a significantly lower price. Nonetheless, it has become a trend among the middle class in the capital to embark on a joyful outing to Sukok for shashlik, enjoying a picnic in the fresh mountain air against the stunning backdrop of the Begizshah and Shahkurgan peaks.

Today, notable attractions in Sukok include the Chashma spring, which fountains like a small geyser, albeit only in early spring, the whimsical Adam-Tash rock that resembles a human figure, and the Zarkent-Ota shrine, the mausoleum of the saint Said Jafar Ghazi, located on the opposite slope of the mountain range. In winter, the local mixed forest becomes particularly captivating. Although man-made, it has an untamed appearance. Intensive livestock farming and deforestation for firewood stripped the slopes of the Chatkal range bare centuries ago, long before the term “ecology” was ever heard. However, in the mid-20th century, a dense area was planted just above Sukok, at the foot of the Begizshah peak, by the Chatkal Mountain Reclamation Forestry Experimental Station of the Institute of Forestry named after Shreder.