Ferghana Valley

The Uzbek part of the Ferghana Valley is in the center of the valley, and in the extreme southeast of Uzbekistan. The whole valley, both this part and the parts in other countries, is on the main route of the old Silk Road route between Kashgar and Samarkand.

Cities

• 1 Andijan — the birthplace of Babur, founder of the Mughal Dynasty.
• 2 Chust
• 3 Ferghana
• 4 Kokand
• 5 Namangan — a stronghold of Wahhabism
• 6 Pop

Other destinations

• 1 Shohimardon – a hill resort and exclave in a valley in the Pamiro-Alai mountains surrounded by Kyrgyzstan

Understand

The Ferghana Valley sits on one of the two main branches of the historic Silk Route (the other traverses the Pamirs and the Tajik-Afghan border). Major important cities along the route such as Khujand (Tajikistan), Kokand (Uzbekistan), and Osh (Kyrgyzstan) popped up at strategic points to tax and control this vital trade route.

The earliest peoples in the valley in recorded history were Persian-speaking peoples and other, related Indo-Iranians like the Scythians (Saka). The fortress-city of Cyropolis was one of the Achaemenid Empire's regional capitals, and it was because of this that Alexander the Great conquered the valley's mouth in the 4th century BCE, founding the city of Alexandria Eschate. Also during the Achaemenid period, rebellious Greeks from the problematic Ionian provinces were resettled. In the aftermath of Alexander's empire, a Greco-Bactrian kingdom ruled up to the Syr Darya (the historic Jaxartes).

After the Greco-Bactrian kingdoms fell, the valley alternated between being part of more "formal" Persian empires and retaining relative autonomy as a collection of Sogdian city states. In the 13th century the valley was conquered by the rapidly-expanding Mongols under Chinggis Khan, and Turkic peoples (specifically Uzbeks and Kyrgyz) began migrating into the region and settling. Tamerlane (Timur) ruled over the valley as part of his greater Timurid state in the 14th century, but with his death the valley fragmented into local khanates. Babur, the founder of South Asia's Mughal dynasty, was the son of the ruler of Andijan (now Uzbekistan), and he swept through the region on his way south.

From 1709-1876, most of the valley was included in the Khanate of Kokand, before its annexation by the Russian Empire. In 1916, the Basmachi Revolt started in Kokand before quickly spreading throughout Russian Turkestan (now all of Central Asia) - originally an anti-Tsarist colonial uprising, it quickly became anti-Soviet, before its brutal suppression in 1934. As "punishment" for the revolt, the valley was divided into three (originally two) separate Soviet Socialist Republics (SSRs), which worked fine until they all became independent nations in the 1990s. Today, the valley is as ethnically diverse as ever, but hard borders create major headaches for both residents and travelers. Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan even went to war in 2021 over a border dispute in the valley.

Talk

In Ferghana most people speak Uzbek, but Russian and other languages of the region such as Tajik are also heard.

Get in

By plane

• Andizhan Airport (AZN ^IATA). Uzbekistan Airways operates flights from Krasnoyarsk, Moscow Domodedovo International Airport , Novosibirsk, Tashkent.
• Namangan Airport (NMA ^IATA).

By road

There is only one way to the Ferghana Valley and it is heavily guarded. You can get to Ferghana with taxi from Tashkent. You can find taxies going there near bazaars. The price is around 30,000 sums. Crossing the border of Ferghana there is a checkpoint where they check passports. Foreigners usually are registered, but there should be no problem.

Note: when going through tunnels there and in area around you cannot photograph or use a mobile phone. The police will stop you and you might have some problems.

Get around

Taxies from certain points of cities go to all other cities. There are also microbuses.

Respect

Ferghana is a strongly Islamic region, so dressing should be modest.

Go next

Ferghana is a "corner" of Uzbekistan. You can either go back or go to other country - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or China - all are not far.

Fergana Valley