Nuratau Mountains: Village Homestays and Walks
Nuratau Mountains homestays: real walking distances between Hayat, Uhum, Asraf and Sentob, EUR 30-35 prices, who to book with, and the reserve myth.
Near Hayat, behind the fence of an 8-hectare breeding enclosure, reserve rangers keep a handful of Severtsov's argali, a wild sheep with heavy curling horns that survives in the wild almost nowhere except these hills. Uzbekistan's ecology committee counted roughly 1,700 to 1,800 of them in the Nurata State Nature Reserve early this year, a figure reported by The Times of Central Asia in February 2026. You almost certainly won't see one.
What you will see is the reason they survived. The homestays that line the valleys of the Nuratau Mountains exist because someone decided in 2000 that villagers who earned money from walkers would graze fewer goats on argali pasture. That bargain is still the whole logic of walking here: you sleep in a family house, eat at their table, and walk over a pass to the next village, where another family does the same.
Where the homestay network came from
The project behind it was a UNDP scheme funded by the Global Environment Facility, titled "Establishment of the Nuratau-Kyzylkum Biosphere Reserve as a Model for Biodiversity Conservation". The GEF project record shows it approved in July 2000 with a $725,000 grant and closed on 31 December 2008, executed by Uzbekistan's State Committee for Nature Protection.
Here's the part most write-ups get wrong. The biosphere reserve in the title was never created. The UNDP-GEF Small Grants Programme in Uzbekistan says plainly that the project didn't end with a reserve, for reasons outside its control, and the UNESCO network lists only two biosphere reserves in the country: Chatkal (1978) and the Lower Amudarya (2021). So if a tour page tells you the villages sit inside a UNESCO biosphere reserve, it's repeating a plan, not a fact.
The reserve that does exist is older and stricter. The Nurata State Nature Reserve covers 17,752 hectares of the central ridge between 530 and 2,169 metres, protects the argali and relict walnut woodland, and dates from the 1970s (sources give both 1973 and 1975). The villages sit outside it; the slopes above them are closed without an arrangement.
Two clusters, not one line of villages
It's easy to picture a single trail threading Sentob, Hayat, Asraf and Uhum. It doesn't work like that. The range runs about 180 km east to west, and the homestay villages fall into two groups on its northern flank, facing Aydarkul:
- The western group, Nurata district (Navoi region): Sentob (also spelled Sentyab) and Majrum (Majerum). Closest to Nurata town.
- The eastern group, Forish district (Jizzakh region): Hayat, Uhum (Ukhum), Asraf and Eski Forish, with the district centre Bog'don (formerly Yangiqishloq) on the road below.
Most people walk within a cluster and drive between them. Nuratau Travel's own seven-day village traverse walks Sentob to Majrum, then puts everyone in a vehicle for the Majrum to Hayat leg, crossing the steppe via the Aydarkul shore. It can be walked, though. The second operator, Nurata Mountains Tours, sells a four-day itinerary whose second day is a 15 km hike from Majrum to Hayat (last checked: October 2026).
The villagers are ethnic Tajiks, which catches out anyone who spent the week practising Uzbek phrases in Samarkand. A few words of Tajik or Russian go further.
The walking stages, with real distances
These are the distances and times published by the two local operators for their standard routes (last checked: September 2026). They're guided figures with a donkey carrying the bags, so a fit walker won't beat them by much and a slow one should add an hour.
| Stage | Distance | Walking time | What's on the way |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sentob to Majrum | 11 km | about 3.5 hours | Reserve buffer zone; an old arbor vitae (archa) tree at Majrum |
| Majrum to Hayat | 15 km | a full day (no time published) | The link between the two clusters; most tours drive it instead |
| Sentob to Fazilman plateau and back | 14 or 22 km | 6.5 or 10 hours | Fortress ruins, a watermill, Fazilman lake at about 1,650 m |
| Hayat to Uhum | 12 km | about 4 hours | Guzar and Sari Bedak passes, old irrigation channels, a petroglyph site |
| Uhum to Asraf | 11 km | 4 to 4.5 hours | Community watermill, ruins described locally as a Mongol-era fort |
| Asraf to Eski Forish and back | 10 to 11 km | 3 to 4 hours | Remains of a medieval lookout point |
Our pick, if you only have three days, is the eastern chain: Hayat to Uhum to Asraf. It's the only stretch where you genuinely arrive somewhere new on foot every night, and the two passes on the first day are the most varied walking in the range. Sentob is the better base for day walks out and back, and for anyone who'd rather not carry anything at all. In our view the rock art near Uhum is a pleasant stop rather than a destination; the Sarmishsay gorge carvings further west are the ones worth a special trip. For a different kind of history in the range, see the old stone dam of Abdullakhan Bandi.
Can you walk it without a guide? Technically, yes. Practically, the paths are unmarked, the reserve boundary is invisible, and hosts in the next village need to know you're coming. We'd take the guide for the pass days at least; our wider guide to walking in Uzbekistan's mountains covers kit and the lack of mountain rescue.
What a homestay costs and who takes the booking
Nuratau Travel, the trading name of Responsible Travel LLC in Bog'don, lists eleven homestays across Sentob, Majrum, Hayat, Uhum, Asraf and Eski Forish at EUR 30 per person per night, with one Hayat house at EUR 35 (last checked: September 2026). A 2025 walker's report from Takali puts the same EUR 30–35 as including dinner and breakfast; confirm lunch separately, since the multi-day tours bundle a packed lunch but single nights may not. You can book through the office or contact hosts directly. The project won the TO DO Award for socially responsible tourism, presented at ITB Berlin in March 2023.
Sentob or Hayat, and walking from one to the other
If you only have time for one village, the choice is mostly about how you want to book. Sentob has the largest stock of independent houses, 22 family guest homes on UN Tourism's count, so it suits travellers who want to book a host directly and do day walks from one base. Hayat is the start of the eastern chain: Nuratau Travel sells it as the first night of a four-day Hayat, Uhum and Asraf hike, and Nurata Mountains Tours reaches it on foot from Majrum. The nightly cost is the same EUR 30 to 35 either way.
Want both on foot? Sentob to Hayat is two days of walking, roughly 26 km on the operators' figures: Sentob to Majrum on the first day, Majrum to Hayat on the second, with a night in a Majrum homestay between. Only the first stage has a published walking time. Treat the second as a full day, take a guide, and tell the Hayat house which day you're arriving. Nuratau Travel's tours list registration by the homestay owner among the inclusions, which settles one paperwork question for you.
A second outfit, Nurata Mountains Tours, sells near-identical Hayat–Uhum–Asraf itineraries with prices listed as negotiable. Sentob has its own crowd of independent houses: UN Tourism's Best Tourism Villages listing, which named Sentob in 2023, counts 22 family guest homes and 3 hostels for 2,024 residents.
Budget extras honestly. Nuratau Travel suggests tipping guides and hosts €4–9 per person per day. Bring cash in som; don't expect a card terminal in Asraf, a village of 18 families. And ask if your host registers you, since village houses vary; our explainer on tourist registration covers what happens if they don't.
Getting there without a tour
The eastern villages are reached from Bog'don, roughly 65 km northwest of Jizzakh. Nuratau Travel's own figures (last checked: September 2026):
- Tashkent to Bog'don by shared taxi: about 100,000 som a seat.
- Samarkand to Jizzakh by bus or shared taxi: 40,000–50,000 som, then Jizzakh to Forish: 7,000–9,000 som.
- Bog'don up to the villages: 160,000–200,000 som for the whole taxi. Hayat and Uhum sit 8.5–9 km off the Bog'don–Nurata road; Asraf is 3.4 km in.
Sentob and Majrum come from the other end, via Nurata town, which our Nurata town guide covers along with the Chashma spring. Sentob lies 5.9–7.1 km up its valley from the main road, depending on which house you're booked into.
Adding Aydarkul, and the right order
The lake sits directly north across the steppe, which is why the two get paired so often. Go mountains first, desert second. The homestays run on a slower clock (one Hayat guesthouse serves dinner at 7pm sharp), and ending on a yurt camp night gives you a proper send-off before the drive on to Bukhara or Samarkand. The camps and what to expect there are in our Aydarkul yurt night guide.
Timing decides what the villages are like when you get there. May brings silkworm trays in the houses and full streams on the Hayat–Uhum stage. October is walnut harvest. In August the hillsides turn brown and the open passes get hot well before lunch, so start at first light or wait for September.