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Uzbekistan: World
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Uzbekistan was the site of one of the world’s oldest civilized regions. The ancient Persian province of Sogdiana, it was conquered in the 4th cent. B.C. by Alexander the Great. Turkic nomads entered the area in the 6th cent. A.D. It passed in the 8th cent. to the Arabs, who introduced Islam, and in the 12th cent. to the Seljuk Turks of Khwarazm. Jenghiz Khan captured the region in the 13th cent., and in the 14th cent. Timur made his native Samarkand the center of his huge empire. The realm was much reduced under his successors, the Timurids, and began to disintegrate by the end of the 15th cent.
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Uzbekistan has a very low GNI per capita (US$460 giving a PPP equivalent of US$1860) [4]. Economic production is concentrated in commodities: Uzbekistan is now the world's fourth-largest producer and the world's second-largest exporter of cotton, as well as the seventh largest world producer of gold. It is ... a regionally significant producer of natural gas, coal, copper, oil, silver, and uranium [5]. Agriculture contributes about 37% of GDP while employing 44% of the labor force [6]. Unemployment and underemployment are estimated to be at least 20% [7].
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Uzbekistan has some of the best preserved Islamic cities in the world. Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva all have great historic centres, with a few almost unbelievably beautiful mosques and Koranic schools. These are cities you cannot miss, if you are at all interested in culture and/or Islam.
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Several cities in Uzbekistan lie along the Great Silk Road, an ancient trade route linking China with Europe. When Marco Polo travelled its course during the 13th century, these cities were teeming oasis settlements experiencing an architectural explosion, albeit one in its early stages. Polo might have seen the Shah I Zinda in Samarkand, though not the Registan, the Mosque Bibi Khanum, or the Gur E Mir, (all built over the next two centuries); the Minaret Kalyan, but not the Medrese Mir I Arab or the three Trading Domes in Bukhara; and he would not have seen either the Minaret Kalta-Minar or the Pakhlavon Mausoleum in Khiva, for though both appear ancient (and awesome), they are proto-medieval monuments constructed during the nineteenth century. Thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, these world-famous marvels have become accessible to twenty-first century adventurers, as have numerous other Uzbek splendors: the Chatkal nature reserve, resorts such as Chimgan and Beldersoy in the Tian Shan mountains, Lake Ayderkul, the Amu Darya river, the Kyzylkum Desert, and Buddhist and Persian archaeological sites around Termez. In this fresh and free post-Soviet era, folk festivals such as Boysun in the Gissar Mountains, Shark in Samarkand, and Mustakillik in Tashkent are flourishing, and bazaars and shops abound with goods from handwoven silk from Margilan in the Ferghana Valley, to ceramics from Rishtan and Gijduvan, to contemporary fashion and antique Suzani hand embroidered wall hangings from Bukhara and Samarkand.
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Train links connect many towns within Uzbekistan, as well as neighbouring ex-republics of the Soviet Union. Moreover, after independence two fast-running train systems were established. Also, there is a large airplane plant that was built during the Soviet era, Tashkent Chkalov Aviation Manufacturing Plant, or ТАПОиЧ in Russian. The plant originated during World War II, when production facilities were evacuated south and east to avoid capture by advancing Nazi forces. Until the late 1980s, the plant was one of the leading airplane production centers in the USSR, but with collapse of the Soviet Union its manufacturing equipment became outdated, and most of the workers were laid off. Now it produces only a few planes a year, but with interest from Russian companies growing in it, there are rumors of production-enhancement plans.
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World-renowned monuments of Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva and the other ancient cities of Uzbekistan have annually attracted to Uzbekistan hundreds of tourists from all over the world. However, until present the richest natural potential of Uzbekistan has been actually little used yet.
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