Tashkent The Uzbek capital, once the fourth largest city in the former USSR, is Central Asia's hub and has better international flight connections than any other city in the region. That said, it's not a picture-postcard destination. Thanks to a huge earthquake in 1966 and the subsequent enthusiasm of Soviet planners, little remains of the city's 2000-year history. Most visitors agree that Tashkent is the most Soviet city in Central Asia and it's said that many of the region's anxious Slavs who won't or can't return to the Motherland are moving to the relative cultural security of this city since it is still at least half Russian-speaking. It's worth taking a stroll around the remnants of the old town, eski shakhar. This maze of narrow dusty streets lined by low, mudbrick houses, mosques and medressas (Islamic academies) seems to have been spared by Soviet planners to show what things would have been like without the glories of socialism. Kukeldash Medressa is a grand 16th-century academy undergoing restoration, whose plaza overflows with worshippers on warm Friday mornings; the tiny 15th-century Jami mosque nearby was used during the Soviet era as a sheet metal workshop. Chorsu Bazaar, a huge open market beside Kukeldash, draws crowds of people from the countryside, many in traditional dress. What Tashkent lacks in old things, it makes up for in big museums about them. The Museum of Fine Arts has a fine collection of the art of pre-Russian Turkestan, including Zoroastrian artefacts, serene 1000-year-old Buddhist statues and Sogdian murals. The Museum of Applied Arts opened in 1937 as a showcase for turn-of-the-century applied arts, though the building itself - designed in traditional Tashkent style - is more interesting than its contents. There are other museums devoted to History (always with a capital 'H'), antiquities, literature, geology and railways. For a bit of light relief, check out the Navoi Opera & Ballet Theatre, the venue for some of the world's cheapest classical opera and the only Soviet building in Tashkent with anything approaching a personality Bukhara With buildings spanning 1000 years of history and a thoroughly lived-in city centre that hasn't changed much in two centuries, Bukhara is one of the best places in Central Asia to catch a glimpse of pre-Russian Turkestan. After Samarkand's luminous mosaics, Bukhara's universal brown is a bit of an optical anti-climax. But since most of the city centre is an architectural preserve - and includes a massive royal fortress, plenty of former medressas, a number of ancient public baths and the remnants of a once-vast market complex - who can complain about a mere colour scheme? There are over 140 protected buildings in the city, but the pick of the sights are Labi-hauz, a 17th-century plaza built around a pool; three domed bazaars; the 12th-century, 47m (154ft) high Kalan minaret, once the tallest building in Asia; and the mausoleum of Ismail Samani, the town's oldest structure (completed around 905) and surely one of the most elegant in Central Asia. Although certain carpet designs originated here, the famous Bukhara rugs so highly regarded in the West are actually made in Turkmenistan, which was once part of the Bukhara khannate. They may not make scintillating carpets, but the locals are much friendlier than residents of Samarkand and Tashkent, something which may equal the pull of the sights if you've been in Uzbekistan for any length of time. Bukhara is the terminus of a train service which extends to Samarkand (six hours), Tashkent (12 hours) and Nukus (20 hours). There's also a weekly train which goes to Almaty in Kazakstan. Tashkent is also accessible by bus or air (two hours). Khiva Legend has it that Khiva was founded when Shem, son of Noah, discovered a well here. The town certainly existed by the 8th century, as a minor fort and trading post on a Silk Road branch to the Caspian Sea and the Volga. In the early 16th century Khiva was made capital of the Timurid Empire, becoming a busy slave market and pivot of the khanate for the next three centuries. Until Russia finally wrested the region from Timurid grasp in the 19th century, even the boldest hearts feared encounters with these fierce tribesmen and their desert territory. Nowadays, Khiva is benign. It's a mere 35km (22mi) south-west of Urgench - a dull town that gave the world algebra - and you pass nothing more scary than cotton bushes and fruit trees. Contemporary Khiva is a distinctly odd place. Its historic heart, unlike those of other Central Asian cities, is preserved in its entirety - but it's so squeaky-clean that all life has been squeezed out of it. Even among its densely packed mosques, tombs, palaces and medressas, you need imagination to get a sense of its former bustle and squalor. However, Khiva's visual surprise, after Samarkand's blue and Bukhara's brown, is the use of turquoise tiles, and at least parts of the Ichon Qala - the walled inner city - remain lived in and are disheveled enough to subvert the city-museum atmosphere. Morning and evening are the best times to see Khiva. The town's highlights include the fat, turquoise-tiled Kalta Minor minaret, the Kukhna Ark fortress, the 218 wooden columns of the Juma Mosque, the sumptuously decorated Tosh-Khovli Palace, the Islom-Huja Medressa and its lighthouse-like minaret and the exquisitely tiled and highly revered Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum. Frequent buses jostle and grind between Urgench and Khiva. Urgench is a handy 16 hours by bus west of Tashkent; flying cuts journey time to three hours.

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