The ancient city of Khiva, in Uzbekistan’s dusty west, abounds with marvels. Intricate blue, green and orange mosaics shimmer in the sun. Colorful racks of fabrics adorn the crags of a 12th-century fortress. Bakers pull fragrant samsas, stuffed with meat and pumpkin, from tandoors.

在尘土飞扬的乌兹别克斯坦西部，古城希瓦处处是奇观。繁复的蓝、绿、橙色彩釉在阳光下熠熠生辉。色彩斑斓的织物架装点着一座12世纪堡垒的峭壁。面包师们从馕坑中取出香气扑鼻的撒姆萨烤包子，里面塞满了肉和南瓜。

Yet somehow I found myself in a stranger’s living room, watching Russian TV.

然而不知为何，我却坐在一位陌生人的客厅里，看着俄罗斯的电视节目。

I had been wandering the narrow streets of Khiva’s timeworn core when I spotted a soaring minaret, just outside the city’s mud-brick walls, that seemed like the perfect place for an aerial view. I searched for an entrance but found only a locked door.

当时我正在希瓦饱经风霜的老城区狭窄街道中漫步，忽然瞥见泥砖城墙外耸立着一座宣礼塔，似乎是俯瞰全景的绝佳地点。我四处寻找入口，却只找到一扇紧锁的门。

In English, I asked a man who was gardening nearby if there was another way in. He answered in Russian, which I don’t speak, and motioned for me to follow him.

我用英语询问附近一位正在打理花园的男子是否有其他入口。他用俄语回答了我——我不懂俄语——并示意让我跟他走。

But instead of showing me the entrance, he took me across the street and into his home. He sat me down in the living room, handed me a hunk of bread slathered with yogurt and turned on the television. For the next 20 minutes, we watched a comedy and communicated via hand gestures. Then he brought me to the door, gave me two dates wrapped in a paper towel and sent me on my way. I never got his name.

但他并没有带我去找入口，而是带我穿过街道进了他家。他让我在客厅坐下，递给我一大块抹了酸奶的面包，然后打开了电视。接下来的20分钟里，我们一起看了一档喜剧节目，靠手势交流。随后他把我带到门口，给了我两个用纸巾包着的椰枣，便送我离开了。我始终不知道他的名字。

I encountered similar acts of unexpected hospitality again and again during my trip to Uzbekistan in February. Like many younger travelers, I had chosen the country because I was seeking a destination with fewer crowds and tourist traps, and more spontaneity and adventure.

在我2月前往乌兹别克斯坦的旅途中，这种意想不到的热情好客屡次上演。就像许多年轻旅行者一样，我之所以选择这个国家，是因为我渴望一个没有那么多游客和套路，可以有更多即兴发挥和探险的目的地。

Those qualities, along with affordability relative to more popular destinations, have made Central Asia a major draw for millennial and Gen Z travelers in the last few years. Social media videos promoting horse treks and road trips through Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have racked up millions of views and likes, and record-breaking, albeit modest, numbers of tourists have flocked to the region.

正是由于这些特质，加上相较于热门目的地更为实惠的价格，中亚在过去几年里成为千禧一代和Z世代旅行者的心头好。推广穿越吉尔吉斯斯坦和哈萨克斯坦骑马徒步和公路旅行的社媒视频获得了数百万的浏览和点赞，创纪录的游客——虽然绝对数量仍然不多——蜂拥而至。

But no Central Asian nation has gotten more attention, or better positioned itself to capitalize on it, than Uzbekistan.

但在中亚国家中，没有一个比乌兹别克斯坦获得更多关注，或者说更好地利用了这股热潮。

Since the country’s longtime dictator died in 2016, Uzbekistan has steadily opened up to foreign visitors. The government has sponsored influencers and travel bloggers. The inaugural Bukhara Biennial, on The New York Times 52 Places to Go in 2025 list, shined a spotlight on the country’s art and culture. Last year, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered the construction of hundreds of new hotels, and this year Uzbekistan stopped requiring visas for U.S. citizens visiting for up to 30 days.

自该国长期执政的独裁者伊斯兰·卡里莫夫于2016年去世后，乌兹别克斯坦稳步向外国游客开放。政府赞助了网红和旅行博主。首届布哈拉双年展登上了《纽约时报》2025年必去52个地方榜单，让全球聚焦于该国的艺术与文化。去年，总统沙夫卡特·米尔济约耶夫下令建造数百家新酒店，今年乌兹别克斯坦对美国公民实施了30天免签政策。

Those efforts are paying off. Uzbekistan welcomed a record 11.7 million international visitors in 2025, up sharply from its prepandemic peak of 6.7 million in 2019, according to the country’s statistics agency. Fewer than 37,000 of last year’s visitors came from the United States, but that figure is more than double the 17,000 Americans who visited in 2019.

这些努力正在取得回报。根据该国的统计机构数据，2025年乌兹别克斯坦迎来了创纪录的1170万国际游客，较2019年疫情前670万的峰值大幅增长。去年仅有不到3.7万名游客来自美国，但这已是2019年的1.7万的一倍多。

After watching countless Instagram reels singing Uzbekistan’s praises as the “dazzling heart of the Silk Road,” I decided it was time to see the place for myself. I booked a nonstop flight from New York to Tashkent on Uzbekistan Airways.

在看了无数在Instagram上盛赞乌兹别克斯坦是“丝绸之路的璀璨之心”的视频后，我决定是时候亲自去看看这个地方了。我预订了乌兹别克斯坦航空公司从纽约直飞塔什干的航班。

Tashkent

塔什干

Leaps, Twirls and a Bustling Bazaar

跳跃、旋转与熙攘的集市

Uzbekistan’s sprawling, modern capital weaves together Silk Road splendor and Soviet austerity, and I could hardly wait to begin exploring. After settling into my room at HL 309 (820,000 Uzbek som, or about $67), a cozy hotel in the city center, I set out along the city’s broad boulevards for the Alisher Navoiy Theater, where I had ballet tickets.

乌兹别克斯坦的这座广阔、现代的首都交织着丝绸之路的辉煌与苏联时代的肃穆，我迫不及待地想要开始探索。在市中心舒适的HL 309酒店（82万乌兹别克索姆，约合430元人民币）安顿好后，我沿着宽阔的林荫大道前往阿里舍尔·纳沃伊剧院，我在那里订了芭蕾舞票。

Inside the lavish performance hall, I sat next to Zavqiya, 17, a high school student from Tashkent with a lot of questions about what I was doing there.

在奢华的演出大厅里，我坐在17岁的塔什干高中生扎夫基亚旁边，她对我在那里做什么充满了疑问。

“How did you even hear about Uzbekistan?” she asked me, in English, while we waited for the show to start.

“你是怎么听说乌兹别克斯坦的？”演出开始前，她用英语问我。

塔什干的阿里舍尔·纳沃伊剧院。

It was the first of many times I would hear variations of that sentiment, as many Uzbeks I met seemed to be grappling with their country’s booming international appeal.

这是我多次听到的类似感慨的第一次，因为我遇到的许多乌兹别克人似乎都对他们国家日益飙升的国际吸引力感到困惑。

Zavqiya had more questions, but we soon turned our attention to the stage, where an array of elaborately costumed ballerinas leaped and twirled in perfect sync, performing “The Lady of the Camellias.”

扎夫基亚还有更多问题，但我们很快将注意力转向了舞台，一群身着华丽戏服的芭蕾舞演员完美同步地跳跃、旋转，表演《茶花女》。

Another work of art, the Tashkent Metro, is one of the country’s grandest legacies of Soviet rule. Its picture-perfect stations are destinations in themselves — one honors cosmonauts; another features dozens of high, neatly painted domes. Photography in the metro was legalized in 2018, but police officers still repeatedly inspected my camera when I went to photograph the stations.

塔什干地铁堪称另一件艺术品，是苏联统治留给乌兹别克斯坦最宏伟的遗产之一。风景如画的车站本身就是目的地——一座致敬宇航员；另一座则拥有数十个高耸、粉刷整洁的圆顶。地铁摄影于2018年合法化，但当我去拍摄车站时，警察仍然反复检查我的相机。

塔什干著名的乔尔苏巴扎的商贩。在乔尔苏巴扎的穹顶之下，新鲜的食物和当地美食堆积如山。

In contrast with the tightly regulated metro, a chaotic scene reigned at Chorsu Bazaar, where vendors hawked sweets, nuts, meats and cheeses in and around an arena-size turquoise dome. The crowds and heaps of fresh foods rivaled those of the bustling marketplaces of Istanbul and Jerusalem.

与管控严密的地铁形成鲜明对比的是乔尔苏巴扎的混乱景象，商贩们在一个体育场大小的青绿色穹顶内外兜售糖果、坚果、肉和奶酪。拥挤的人群和堆积的新鲜食物足以与伊斯坦布尔和耶路撒冷熙熙攘攘的市场相媲美。

I bought a few strips of qovun qoqi, a chewy, sun-dried melon snack, and I tried, mostly successfully, not to bump the slabs of meat hanging along the market’s narrow walkways.

我买了几条Qovun Qoqi（一种耐嚼的日晒瓜干零食），并尽力避免撞到市场狭窄走道两旁悬挂的肉——大部分时候是成功的。

Samarkand

撒马尔罕

Inside a Silk Road Synagogue

走进丝绸之路的犹太会堂

The high-speed Afrosiyob train whisked me two hours across the flatlands to Samarkand the next morning. To get to the city center, I used the consistently cheap Russian ride-hailing app Yandex Go.

第二天早上，阿弗拉西阿卜号高铁用两个小时载着我穿过平原，直达撒马尔罕。为了去市中心，我使用了价格一直很便宜的俄罗斯打车软件Yandex Go。

Samarkand features a dazzling array of art and architecture. At its core is the Registan, a triad of gleaming madrasas, or Islamic schools, built between the 15th and 17th centuries, which tower over a broad plaza.

撒马尔罕有一系列令人眼花缭乱的艺术和建筑。其核心是雷吉斯坦广场，这是一组建于15至17世纪的闪闪发光的经学院（即伊斯兰学校）三联体，俯瞰着宽阔的广场。

雷吉斯坦华丽的几何建筑结构使其成为乌兹别克斯坦最引人注目的景点之一。

At the nearby Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, visitors gazed quietly at the labyrinthine tiles adorning mausoleums built to honor Qutham ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Muhammad who brought Islam to the region in the seventh century.

在附近的沙希津达陵墓群，游客们静静地凝视着装饰在陵墓上的迷宫般的瓷砖，这些陵墓是为了纪念库萨姆·本·阿巴斯——先知穆罕默德的堂弟，他在7世纪将伊斯兰教带到了这一地区。

Uzbekistan once had a sizable Jewish population, but most Jews left the country after the fall of the Soviet Union. Not far from the main attractions, the Gumbaz Synagogue, built in 1891, hosts one of the country’s last congregations.

乌兹别克斯坦曾拥有相当规模的犹太人口，但在苏联解体后，大多数犹太人离开了该国。离主要景点不远的地方，建于1891年的贡巴兹犹太会堂是该国最后一批犹太会众集会的地方。

The door was locked when I showed up, but a slip of paper pinned above the entrance displayed a handwritten phone number. I sent it a text, and the next day Rabbi Yesev Tilyaev gave me a private tour, mostly in Russian, during which he proudly showed me the sanctuary’s hand-carved bimah and venerable collection of Hebrew texts.

我到的时候，会堂的门锁着，但门口上方钉着的一张纸条上有手写的电话号码。我发了一条短信，第二天，叶谢夫·蒂利亚耶夫拉比带我进行了私人参观，大部分时间用俄语讲解。他自豪地向我展示了圣殿里手工雕刻的诵经台和珍贵的希伯来语典籍收藏。

Dinner at Old City Restaurant defied the adage that you don’t visit Central Asia for the food. My plov, a beloved Central Asian staple composed of rice, carrots and meat, featured stuffed grape leaves, pomegranate seeds, a quail egg, an apple slice and a gooey roasted head of garlic.

在老城餐厅吃的晚餐打破了“去中亚不是为了美食”这句老话。我的抓饭（一种深受喜爱的中亚主食，由米饭、胡萝卜和肉组成）搭配了酿葡萄叶、石榴籽、一枚鹌鹑蛋、一片苹果和一个软糯的烤大蒜头。

Back at the Old Radio Hostel that evening (159,000 som), the diversity of my fellow travelers showed just how much Uzbekistan is changing. There was a Taiwanese woman on her first solo trip; a German man finishing a backpacking trek through Afghanistan; and Rainer Mautz, a 56-year-old Swiss man who was a year into a 9,300-mile walk from Portugal to Singapore.

那天晚上回到老电台旅舍（Old Radio Hostel，15.9万索姆，约合83元人民币），我的旅伴们的多样性恰恰说明了乌兹别克斯坦正在发生多大的变化。有一位第一次独自旅行的台湾女性、一位刚结束阿富汗背包徒步旅行的德国男子，还有56岁的瑞士人莱纳·毛茨，他正在进行一项从葡萄牙到新加坡、全程约15000公里的徒步之旅，已经走了一年。

The hostel owner, Sherzod Mirzaev, 40, said Uzbekistan’s recent social media exposure had brought him “more and more guests from around the world,” many of them young people seeking “something unpredictable.”

40岁的旅舍老板谢尔佐德·米尔扎耶夫表示，乌兹别克斯坦最近在社交媒体上的曝光为他带来了“越来越多来自世界各地的客人”，其中许多人都是寻求“奇遇”的年轻人。

“Uzbekistan is still an undiscovered place,” he said. “But in five or seven years, it will be too commercial.”

“乌兹别克斯坦仍然是一个未被发现的地方，”他说。“但在五到七年里，它会变得过于商业化。”

Bukhara

布哈拉

A Hive of Creativity

创意的蜂巢

拉比豪兹广场是布哈拉的一个中心广场，附近有许多地毯店。

Bukhara is less flashy than Samarkand. Its blue-tiled mausoleums sag under the weight of the centuries. But it’s also bursting with creativity, and chief among its crafts is carpet weaving, a tradition that dates back hundreds of years.

布哈拉不像撒马尔罕那样浮华。它那铺着蓝瓷砖的陵墓在岁月的重压下已经出现沉降。但这里也充满了创造力，其中最主要的工艺是地毯编织，这一传统可追溯至数百年前。

Near the Labi Hovuz, a central square that’s home to a gnarled mulberry tree supposedly planted in 1477, I visited a half-dozen carpet shops and chatted with their owners.

在拉比豪兹（一个中心广场，那里有一棵据说种植于1477年的虬结桑树）附近，我走访了六七家地毯店，并与店主们聊天。

One was Ulugbek Kosimov, 50, who has been making silk carpets since he was a teenager. When I asked how he created each rug’s intricate pattern, he led me downstairs to his studio, where one of his students was weaving colorful strands on a wooden loom. He sat me down alongside her, handed me a hooked tool and gently guided my fingers to pull and twist two threads together around the hook.

其中一位是50岁的乌鲁格别克·科西莫夫，他从十几岁起就开始制作丝绸地毯。当我问他如何织出每块地毯的复杂图案时，他带我下楼来到他的工作室，他的一名学生正在木制织机上编织彩色的丝线。他让我坐在她旁边，递给我一个钩针工具，并轻轻引导我的手指绕着钩针拉扯并扭转两根线。

If I did that 100,000 more times, he said, I’d have a carpet.

他说，再这样做10万次，就能织出一块地毯了。

Before leaving Bukhara, I stopped at the 16th-century Bozori Kord Bathhouse, where I experienced an exquisite ordeal of a massage (455,000 som). It involved a lot of knuckles, buckets of freezing water and a burning ginger scrub, but the domed ceilings and gentle sun shining through a skylight helped make it, somehow, worth the pain.

离开布哈拉前，我在16世纪的博佐里·科尔德浴室停留了一下，在那里经历了一场精致的折磨——按摩（45.5索姆，约合237元人民币）。这包括大量的指关节按压、几桶冰水和火辣辣的生姜按摩膏，但圆顶的天花板和透过天窗温柔照进来的阳光，不知怎的，让这一切的痛苦都变得值得。

Khiva

希瓦

Waiting for the Crowds

等待人群

如今，乘坐高铁从塔什干前往风景如画的希瓦市仅需不到八小时，过去需14小时。

Khiva, the smallest city on Uzbekistan’s tourist circuit, is set to change more than perhaps anywhere else in the country as the tourism boom accelerates.

希瓦是乌兹别克斯坦旅游线路上最小的城市，但随着旅游热潮的加速，这里的变化可能比该国任何其他地方都要大。

The arrival of high-speed rail in May cut the travel time from Tashkent to less than eight hours, from 14. New hotels are popping up even within the Itchan Kala, the city’s walled inner fortress. Khiva felt like a city on the brink, waiting for the crowds to arrive.

5月高铁的开通将塔什干到这里的行程缩短到不到八小时（原来是14小时）。甚至在伊钦·卡拉——这座城市的城墙内堡垒——内部，新酒店也在不断涌现。希瓦感觉像是一座处于临界点上的城市，等待着人群的到来。

Khiva has a long history of puppetry, with roots in the Zoroastrianism practiced there 2,000 years ago. I walked to the Khorezm Regional Puppet Theater and, by chance, I showed up at the same time as a school field trip. In an instant, a teacher ushered me into the theater with the children.

希瓦有着悠久的木偶戏历史，可以追溯到2000年前在此流传的祆教。我步行前往花拉子模地区木偶剧院，凑巧赶上了一个学校组织的参观活动。突然间，一位老师招呼我带着孩子们一起进了剧场。

It was a spectacle: Onstage, actors sang, danced and maneuvered their puppets. In the seats around me, 200 Uzbek fifth graders alternated between watching the show and wrestling one another to the floor.

场面十分壮观：舞台上，演员们载歌载舞，操纵着他们的木偶。在我周围的座位上，200名乌兹别克五年级学生时而看戏，时而互相摔跤打闹。

Outside, the city’s ancient walls illustrated the overlapping layers of its past: fortified gates, patched-up bricks, stairs that led to nowhere.

城外，古城墙诉说着层层叠叠的历史：加固的大门、修补过的砖块、并不通向什么地方的阶梯。

Each told the stories of reinvention by the Arabs, Mongols, Persians, Soviets.

每一处都讲述了阿拉伯人、蒙古人、波斯人和苏联人重塑这座城市的故事。

And, now, the tourists.

而现在，轮到游客了。