Tashkent City Tour: the Old City, Chorsu Bazaar and the Metro

<section><h2>Overview</h2><p>Tashkent is usually treated as a place to change planes, and a day here shows why that is a mistake. The old quarter, the biggest bazaar in the country and a metro built as underground architecture sit within a short drive of one another.</p></section><section><h2>The old city and the bazaar</h2><p>The tour starts at the Khast-Imam complex, the religious heart of Tashkent, where a library holds one of the earliest surviving copies of the Quran. Next door is Chorsu Bazaar, its great green dome sheltering stalls of spices, dried fruit, bread and cheese.</p><p>Lunch is plov at the Central Asian Plov Centre, where rice, carrot and lamb are cooked in cauldrons large enough to feed hundreds at once.</p></section><section><h2>The modern city</h2><p>The afternoon rides the metro from Kosmonavtlar to Mustaqillik Maydoni — the first metro in Central Asia, each station decorated as its own work of art — and then walks through Independence Square, past the Alisher Navoi Theatre and on to Amir Temur Square and the Monument of Courage.</p></section><section><h2>Highlights</h2><ul><li>The Khast-Imam complex and its ancient Quran</li><li>Chorsu Bazaar under its green dome</li><li>Plov lunch at the Central Asian Plov Centre</li><li>A ride on the Tashkent metro</li><li>Independence Square and Amir Temur Square</li></ul></section>