Concealed for many years under the cloak of the crumbled Soviet Empire, Central Asia preserved a sense of remoteness. Due to its magnificent location at the crossroads of Asia, the area became the hub of the legendary Silk Route, going from China to Constantinople.

The Samanids and later the Karakhanid dynasty ruled over a kingdom settled in the area.

The kingdom fell in the 12th century under the Genghis Khan rule in his bold action of the conquering of Europe. The Arab tradition continued under Genghis Khan’s spiritual successor, Timur Lenk, and later under his enlightened nephew Ulug Bek, the epitome Arab scientist, mathematician, and astronomer, killed by his followers.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, entire Central Asia became a vital piece of the puzzle of the famous “Great Game,” an old-time Cold War played between the Russian and the British empires for controlling Asia. 


The legendary cities of Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva are now part of modern Uzbekistan, a slice of the old Turkestan, the name the area carried for a long time till the contemporary times.