Things to Do in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Quick facts: Here lies the world's oldest preserved Quran, the Uthman Quran from the 7th century, handwritten on goatskin and still visible to visitors. The complex brings together seven historic buildings in one area, including mosques, madrasas, and a library with over 20,000 rare manuscripts.

Highlights: The 1,350-year-old Uthman Quran is kept in a glass case with constant climate control, and you can see blood stains on the pages from the day Caliph Uthman was murdered while reading it. Only a few places on earth can you get so close to a document that directly connects you with Islam's earliest history.

Quick facts: The enormous blue domed building covers over 2,000 sales stalls spread across two floors. Here people shop daily among spices, dried fruit, handicrafts, and fresh vegetables from all over the Fergana Valley.

Highlights: The domed building's characteristic turquoise ceiling is designed to resemble a large, half-open melon, a tribute to the surrounding melon fields that have made the area famous. From the rooftop terrace, one can see the central main dome dominating the cityscape, but few know that the market actually extends out into an entire neighborhood with small alleys filled with butchers and pickle vendors.

Quick facts: The museum houses over 250,000 objects spanning more than 200,000 years of history, from the Stone Age to the present day. Here you will find one of the world's finest collections of Sogdian art and an original 2,000-year-old mummy from the Taklamakan Desert.

Highlights: In the museum's gold room hangs a 2,300-year-old gold belt from the Sogdian culture, so finely carved that you can see every single hair in the lion manes. The collection of Zoroastrian clay tablets with Sogdian script is the largest outside of Iran and offers a unique insight into a bygone trading culture that few know about.

Quick facts: The dome's blue tiles shift in shade depending on the sunlight, from deep sapphire in the morning to turquoise at sunset. Inside, the walls are adorned with over 100 handwritten calligraphic inscriptions from the Quran, every single gold detail applied by hand.

Highlights: The secret lies beneath the floor, where an ancient water reservoir from the khanate era still lies intact and cools the building naturally in summer. One of the few mosques in the region where the minaret is built exactly as tall as the dome's diameter, an architectural ratio that creates a perfect balance you can measure with your eye from the courtyard.

Quick facts: At 375 meters, this is Central Asia's tallest structure and weighs over 6,000 tons. The tower can withstand earthquakes of up to 9 on the Richter scale thanks to an advanced reinforced concrete construction.

Highlights: In the tower's revolving restaurant, the floor slowly rotates so guests can enjoy a complete 360-degree view of Tashkent while eating a three-course meal. The glass in the observation deck is specially designed to withstand temperature differences of up to 60 degrees between summer and winter.

Quick facts: Over 4,000 items of Uzbek handicrafts are found in a former diplomatic palace from the 1930s. Hand-carved wooden ceilings, colorful suzani embroideries, and glazed ceramics from all over Central Asia fill every corner.

Highlights: The entrance hall is a work of art in itself: every single centimeter of the ceiling is covered in hand-carved and gold-painted wooden panels, created by masters from Khiva and Bukhara. Pay attention to the secret inner courtyard with a fountain surrounded by blue glazed tiles, where the sound of water blends with the scent of jasmine in spring.

Quick facts: Over 4,500 plant species from around the world grow across the 108-hectare grounds. The collection includes everything from rare Central Asian mountain plants to Japanese cherry trees and giant eucalyptus trees.

Highlights: An 80-year-old plane tree with a trunk circumference of over 6 meters stands as the king of the garden in the park's center. The garden also functions as a living seed archive for endangered plant species from across Central Asia, including wild pear and apple trees that cannot be found growing anywhere else.