Heart of Craft & Silk

Fergana Valley

Overview

Cradled by mountains in the east, the fertile Fergana Valley is Uzbekistan’s creative heartland. This is where ikat silk is woven, ceramics are hand-painted and traditions pass from one generation to the next.

Why Visit

Margilan, the centre of Uzbek silk and ikat weaving
Rishtan’s famous blue-and-green ceramics
Kokand’s opulent Khan’s palace

Travel Tips

— The drive over the Kamchik Pass is spectacular
— Best combined with Tashkent at the start of a longer tour
— Visit workshops to buy directly from the makers

Sights in Fergana Valley

Craft workshop · Founded 1972

Yodgorlik Silk Factory, Margilan

A working Margilan silk mill where the whole ikat process is still done by hand: cocoons reeled in steaming vats, warps tied and dyed in patterns, and atlas and adras woven on wooden looms.

Palace · Early 1870s

Khudayar Khan Palace, Kokand

The tiled palace of the last ruling khan of Kokand, completed in the early 1870s on the eve of the Russian conquest: a long blue, green and yellow façade on a high platform, with painted ceilings and the regional museum inside.

Craft workshop · Pottery tradition over many centuries; World Craft City since 2025

Rishtan Ceramics Workshops

The pottery town of the Fergana Valley, where family workshops shape local red clay and glaze it with ishkor, a plant-ash glaze that gives Rishtan ceramics their deep turquoise and cobalt.

Bazaar · Traditional market

Kumtepa Bazaar, Margilan

The Fergana Valley's most atmospheric market, about 5 km west of Margilan, trading on Thursdays and Sundays: long rows of atlas and adras silk by the bolt, embroidered skullcaps, food and livestock.

Mosque · Early 19th century (c. 1812–1818)

Juma Mosque, Kokand

Kokand's Friday mosque, built under Umar Khan in the early 19th century: an open iwan about 100 metres long carried on 98 carved wooden columns, with a minaret of about 22 metres in the courtyard.

Madrasa · Late 19th century

Said Akhmad Khoja Madrasah, Margilan

A late 19th-century madrasah in the centre of Margilan whose former student cells now house craft workshops: woodcarvers, embroiderers and other masters at work around a quiet courtyard.

Madrasa · c. 1799

Narbutabey Madrasah, Kokand

One of the largest surviving madrasahs of Kokand, built around 1799 by the ruler Narbuta Biy, with the royal necropolis of the Kokand khans in the same quarter.

Madrasa · 1910–1912

Mullah Kyrgyz Madrasah, Namangan

Namangan's finest monument: a madrasah of 1910–1912 with a portal faced in blue, green, yellow and white tile mosaic and brick inscriptions, one of the last great madrasahs built in the Fergana Valley.

Craft workshop · Living craft tradition

Chust Knife Makers

The Namangan-region town whose forged knives, the Chust pichoq, are carried and given as gifts across Uzbekistan; family smiths still forge, temper and finish them by hand.

Park · City founded 1876; park in the historic centre

Al-Fergani Park, Fergana

The large shaded park at the heart of Fergana, a 19th-century Russian garrison town with leafy radial avenues, named after the 9th-century astronomer Ahmad al-Farghani, whose monument stands here.