Bukhara bazaars, surpassing the markets of Tashkent, Samarkand and Kokand

Bukhara bazaars, surpassing the markets of Tashkent, Samarkand and Kokand

The Bukhara bazaars were considered “more curious than all the others – Tashkent, Samarkand, and Kokand. The bazaars in Bukhara are an entire network of narrow curved streets, cordoned with reed baskets, or even with roofs of logs and rods, smeared over with clay, with square holes for light and air.

The streets are interconnected by small platforms cordoned with vaulted domes on the vaulted walls. These sites form what is called circular bazaars. On both sides of the streets, closely adjoining each other, there are courtyards and little shops, caravanserais and handicraft institutions – saddleries, forges, coppersmith workshops, silversmith workshops, pottery, bakeries, etc. Each street in the bazaar is assigned its own kind of goods. Once, for example, in the red row, the whole time you will see only Russian fabrics, – calico, cloth, shawls, turbans and belts of Russian production; in the adras row, only local silk and semi-silk fabrics and velvet; in the copper row there are only coppersmith workshops and stores selling products of these workshops; in the moscatel row – only a number of stores selling Russian or locally produced small things, and pharmacies, etc. There is an exception only for kitchen-restaurants. They, like “tea houses,” are scattered everywhere. There, on an open stove and on braziers, people fry “shashlik” and “qovurdoq” or steam dumplings. Customers either eat them in the street or in the kitchen.”

You can learn more about the topic in the book-album “Uzbekistan in historic photographs of the 19th - early 20th centuries in the collections of Russian archives” (Volume XXXVII) in the series “Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan”.
 
The general sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.
 

Bukhara bazaars, surpassing the markets of Tashkent, Samarkand and Kokand