The story of Uzbekistan's Koryo-saram: the 1937 deportation from the Soviet Far East, the community today, and the Korean dishes that became Uzbek, from kuksi to the Korean carrot salad. Where to eat them in Tashkent and why it matters to Korean visitors.
Facts, prices and schedules checked on November 4, 2026
Walk into a bazaar anywhere in Uzbekistan and you will find a stall selling bright orange shredded carrots, glossy with oil, garlic and chilli. It is called Korean carrot, or morkovcha, and it is not Korean in the way a traveller from Seoul would expect. It is a dish invented by the Koryo-saram, the ethnic Koreans of the former Soviet Union, who arrived in Uzbekistan as deportees in 1937 and made a new cuisine out of what the soil gave them.
This is a short guide to that community: how it came to Uzbekistan, what it is like today, which dishes to taste and where to find them in Tashkent. It is also a note for Korean and Japanese visitors who may be surprised to find a living piece of Korean heritage in the middle of Central Asia.
Who are the Koryo-saram?
Koryo-saram means Koryo people, the name the community uses for itself. Their ancestors were Koreans who settled in the Russian Far East from the 1860s, farming rice and vegetables near Vladivostok and along the Ussuri river. In the autumn of 1937 the Soviet authorities ordered the entire Korean population of the region to leave, on the stated grounds of preventing espionage for Japan.
About 172,000 people, according to most sources, were loaded onto freight trains and sent to the Kazakh and Uzbek Soviet republics. The journey took weeks, in winter conditions, and mortality was high; estimates of the number who died in the first two years are around 40,000, though figures vary. Families were left in empty steppe and told to build their own housing, often in dugouts.
Settling in Uzbekistan
The Koreans who arrived in Uzbekistan were put to work on collective farms along the Syr Darya and around Tashkent. They grew rice and vegetables in the irrigated lands that the Soviet planners wanted opened up, and many of the collective farms became known as among the most productive in the republic. The community later moved into teaching, medicine, engineering, trade and the arts.
Population figures differ. Reference works give roughly 170,000 to 200,000 Koreans in Uzbekistan in the early 2000s, the exact number depending on the census year and on how mixed families are counted. Many Koryo-saram speak Russian as a first language and few speak Korean fluently, although the old dialect, which is close to the speech of north-eastern Korea, survives among the elderly. Intermarriage with Uzbeks, Russians and others is common.
The Korean food that became Uzbek
The Koryo-saram had no cabbage, no gochugaru and none of the fermentation jars of Korea. What they had were carrots, onions, rice, garlic, vinegar and whatever else the local markets offered. They improvised, and the result is a cuisine that Koreans in Korea sometimes find unfamiliar and Uzbeks find completely normal.
- Morkovcha, Korean carrot. Shredded carrot dressed with oil, vinegar, garlic, coriander and red pepper. It is a substitute for kimchi, and its name combines the Russian word for carrot with a Korean-style ending. It now appears on every Uzbek and Russian-speaking table and in supermarkets across the region.
- Kuksi. A cold noodle soup in a spicy beef broth, with strips of omelette, cucumber and meat. It is the Koryo-saram version of a Korean noodle dish, and it is the dish locals will most often send a visitor to try, especially in summer.
- Pigodi. Steamed or fried dumplings, sometimes with greens, popular as a snack.
- Hye. Marinated raw fish or meat with vinegar and spices, usually served at family occasions.
- Kimchi and other pickles, made from what is available and found at Chorsu Bazaar alongside the carrot salad.
Several of these dishes sit comfortably next to plov and samsa on a menu in Tashkent. They are a good example of how the city absorbed communities from across the Soviet Union.
Where to taste it in Tashkent
Start at Chorsu Bazaar, where rows of women sell Korean salads by weight; you can buy a portion of carrot, cabbage or marinated vegetables and eat it with fresh bread. The bazaar is also a good place to buy a pack of kuksi noodles or the sauces used for them.
For a sit-down meal, Tashkent has a growing number of Korean restaurants, serving both the South Korean community and locals. Names that regularly appear in 2026 local guides include KeyTown and Kim Sat Gat, though we have not confirmed that they still operate, so check recent reviews and opening hours. Many Uzbek chaikhanas and cafés also keep kuksi on the summer menu.
To see the history, visit the House of Korean Culture and Art, which opened in 2019 with a concert hall, cinema, gallery and library, and the Seoul Garden in Tashkent, where a relief commemorates the arrival of the deportation trains and the welcome that local Uzbek families gave the newcomers. Check the opening hours before you go.
K-pop, Korean language and why it matters today
South Korea is one of Uzbekistan's major trade and investment partners, and Korean companies run factories, hotels and universities in the country. For a generation of young Uzbeks, Korean pop music, dramas and cosmetics are part of daily life, and Korean language courses are among the most popular.
For visitors from Korea and Japan, this adds a layer to a standard Silk Road trip. Korean travellers can combine the classic route with a half day on the Koryo-saram story, and guides in Korean and Japanese can be arranged on request. Our guide to Uzbekistan for Japanese travellers covers the practical side for visitors from East Asia.
Family celebrations and traditions
Some Korean customs survived the journey and were adapted. Families still mark a child's first birthday with a feast and a ceremony in which the child chooses among symbolic objects, and the sixtieth birthday, known as hwangap, is celebrated as a major family event with long tables and speeches. Weddings often combine Korean, Russian and Uzbek elements, and the neighbourhood solidarity of the mahalla, described in our guide to Uzbek traditions, is familiar to Koryo-saram families too.
Many of the older generation also observe memorial days for ancestors. Visitors are rarely invited to these, but a guide with local friends can sometimes arrange a meal with a family, if the family agrees and if it is understood to be a private invitation rather than a performance.
Make your own morkovcha
The salad is easy to reproduce at home, which is the best souvenir of the visit. Grate about 500 grams of carrots with a long-strand grater and mix with a teaspoon of salt, a teaspoon of sugar and two tablespoons of vinegar. Squeeze lightly and leave for 15 minutes. Add two crushed garlic cloves, a pinch of ground coriander and red pepper, then pour over about four tablespoons of very hot vegetable oil. Stir, cover and leave for at least a few hours; it improves overnight. Recipes vary from family to family, and the right level of sweetness and heat is a local debate.
A respectful way to approach the story
The deportation is a painful chapter, and many families still carry the memory. A visitor who asks questions and listens will usually be welcomed, and the topic is often raised proudly as a story of survival. Avoid reducing the community to the food, and avoid asking about the death toll or politics of the deportation. A guide who knows the history and the local families can introduce the story with care.
Visiting from Korea or Japan
South Korean passport holders can usually enter Uzbekistan without a visa for a short stay, but check the current rule on the official e-visa site before you travel. Korean-speaking guides are not always easy to find, so tell your operator early. A thoughtful itinerary pairs the Koryo-saram half day with the standard Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara route, so that the story of the deportation is read against the larger story of the Silk Road.
Reading more
For the wider picture of food in the country, our guides to Uzbek food, street food and regional cuisines show where the Koryo-saram dishes sit among plov, samsa and manti. The Soviet decades that shaped the community's new home are covered in our guides to Soviet Tashkent and Tashkent modernism, and the old city's food culture continues at Chorsu Bazaar.
How TourEast can help
We can add a Koryo-saram half day to a Tashkent stay: Chorsu Bazaar, a kuksi lunch and the House of Korean Culture and Art, with a guide who knows the history. It fits well with the Tashkent days of our flavours of Uzbekistan tour.
