Tashkent's Old City: A Walking Guide
A half-day walk through Tashkent's surviving old quarters: Hazrati Imam, the mahalla lanes, Chorsu bazaar and the Kukeldash madrasah, with timings and etiquette.
Tashkent has a reputation among travellers as the city you fly into and leave. Wide avenues, Soviet blocks, fountains, a metro. All true, and all in the newer half of the city.
The older half is still there, northwest of the centre, in a wedge of low streets between the Hazrati Imam complex and Chorsu bazaar. It is not a preserved old town in the Khiva sense. It is a working neighbourhood with 16th-century buildings in it, and the walk between them is the point.
This guide sets out that walk: roughly three kilometres, three to four hours at a wandering pace, with a bazaar lunch in the middle.
Why so little is old
Two events shaped what you'll see. The first was the Russian conquest in 1865, after which a new colonial city was laid out on the other side of the Ankhor canal, leaving the old Muslim town largely to itself.
The second was the earthquake of 26 April 1966, which destroyed a large part of central Tashkent and left tens of thousands of families homeless. The rebuilding that followed was fast, Soviet and comprehensive, and much of the old city's mud-brick housing went with it.
What survives is patchy: religious buildings that were substantial enough to stand, and pockets of mahalla, the traditional neighbourhood of courtyard houses around a lane, a mosque and a teahouse. Knowing that changes expectations. You are not walking through an intact historic quarter, you are walking through the pieces of one.
The route at a glance
| Stop | Time | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Hazrati Imam complex | 60–75 min | Tashkent's religious centre; mosques, madrasahs, the Uthman Quran |
| Mahalla lanes | 30 min | Courtyard houses, bakeries, neighbourhood mosques |
| Chorsu bazaar | 60 min | Domed market; lunch, spices, bread, produce |
| Kukeldash madrasah | 20 min | 16th-century madrasah above the bazaar |
| Juma mosque | 15 min | Friday mosque beside Kukeldash |
Start at Hazrati Imam and finish at Chorsu, not the other way round. The complex is best in morning light and emptiest before ten, and finishing at the bazaar means finishing near a metro station with food in front of you.
Stop one: Hazrati Imam
Hazrati Imam, also written Hastimam, is the religious heart of Tashkent and the seat of the country's Muslim board. It grew around the tomb of Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Kaffal al-Shashi, a 10th-century scholar and poet, and the buildings around that grave now form a large paved square.
The ensemble includes the Barak Khan madrasah and the Tillya Sheikh mosque, both with 16th-century origins, the small Moyie Mubarak library, and the very large Hazrati Imam mosque, which was built in 2007 and looks it. The mix of centuries is jarring at first and then makes sense: this is a working religious centre, not a ruin.
The single object people come for is in the Moyie Mubarak library: an early Quran manuscript in Kufic script, traditionally associated with the caliph Uthman and claimed as one of the oldest surviving copies anywhere. Scholars argue about the attribution and the date; the manuscript itself is undoubtedly very early, and it is displayed in a dim room under glass with no photography allowed.
Practical notes: the square is free, the library charges a small fee, and the mosques are in use, so dress modestly and time your visit away from prayers. Our full guide to the Hazrati Imam complex goes building by building.
Stop two: the mahalla lanes
From the southern edge of the complex, walk towards Chorsu on the small streets rather than the main road. This is the part of the day that no guidebook can script, and it is the reason to do the walk on foot.
A mahalla is a self-governing neighbourhood with its own committee, its own mosque and, historically, its own teahouse where the men of the street settle arguments. The houses turn blank walls to the lane and open onto interior courtyards, which is why the streets look closed and the doorways look surprising. Where a gate is open in the morning you will see a vine, a tapchan, the wooden platform families eat on, and usually a cat.
Things to look out for as you walk:
- Bread ovens. Small bakeries fire tandirs through the morning. Buy a hot non; it costs a few thousand som and it is the best thing you'll eat that day.
- Carved doors. Old wooden gates with geometric panels survive on a few houses, often next to a steel replacement.
- Water channels. The aryk running along the street edge is the old irrigation system and the reason trees grow here at all.
- Neighbourhood mosques. Small, plain, often with a modest minaret and an open door. These are not sights; don't go in unless invited.
You will get slightly lost. The lanes bend, and the map apps handle them badly. Keep walking roughly south and you will hit the ring road and, beyond it, the blue dome of Chorsu.
Stop three: Chorsu bazaar
Chorsu has been the market of Tashkent for a thousand years, sitting where the caravan roads crossed. The building is modern, a wide turquoise dome raised in the 1980s, but the trade under it is old.
Inside, the layout is by category on two levels: dairy and pickles in one ring, dried fruit and nuts in another, spices, then meat in the centre under the dome. Outside, the market spreads over several blocks with clothes, hardware, pottery and the plov stalls.
Eat here. The classic choice is a plate of plov from a cauldron at a stall on the south side, ideally before one o'clock, since the good cooks sell out. Alternatives: samsa straight from the oven, lagman, or a bowl of shurpa. Our street food guide covers what to order and how much it should cost, and our Chorsu guide maps the sections in detail.
Bargaining is expected for crafts and clothes, not for food, where prices are per kilo and fixed. Carry small notes, keep your bag in front of you in the crowded aisles, and taste before you buy dried fruit; vendors offer samples and expect you to take them.
Stop four: Kukeldash madrasah and the Juma mosque
On the rise above the bazaar stands the Kukeldash madrasah, built in the 16th century under the Shaybanid dynasty and the largest surviving madrasah in Tashkent. Its name means "the khan's foster brother", the title of the vizier who founded it.
The building has had a rough life: caravanserai, fortress, warehouse, ruin, museum, and now a working religious school again. Parts are restored plainly, and the portal is the best thing about it, along with the view down over the bazaar dome from the terrace in front.
Next door is the Juma, or Friday, mosque of Tashkent, on a site used since the 15th century and rebuilt in the late 1990s after decades as a workshop. Between the two you get the whole story of religious architecture in this city in about twenty minutes.
From here, Chorsu metro station is a three-minute walk, which puts you back in the modern centre in under fifteen. Our Tashkent metro guide covers tickets and the stations worth seeing for their own sake.
Timing, etiquette and practicalities
Start at 9am. The complex is quiet, the mahalla bakeries are working, and you reach the bazaar hungry at noon. In summer, start at 8 and be under the dome by 11, because the walk has almost no shade.
- Dress: shoulders and knees covered for the religious sites; a scarf in a bag for women.
- Fridays: the mosques are busy around midday prayers. Worth seeing, but visit the interiors before or after.
- Photography: fine outdoors, not in the Quran room, and ask before photographing people, especially women.
- Money: cash for the bazaar, small notes; cards are useless at stalls.
- Getting there: taxi to Hazrati Imam, roughly 15,000 to 25,000 som from the centre with Yandex Go (last checked: July 2026).
If you'd rather not walk the middle section, take a taxi between the complex and Chorsu; it costs almost nothing and skips the hottest kilometre. You lose the best part of the day, but you keep both ends of it.
Our etiquette guide covers the wider customs, and the Tashkent travel guide has the rest of the city, including what to do with the afternoon after this walk. The Kukeldash madrasah also has a page on Uzbekistan's official tourism portal with its history.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Tashkent's old city worth a half day?
Yes, if you want to see how people in this city actually live. It is not Khiva or Bukhara, and if you are expecting an intact historic quarter you will be disappointed. Treat it as a neighbourhood walk with three good monuments on it and it is the best half day in Tashkent.
Can I do the walk in reverse from Chorsu?
You can, and it makes sense if you're arriving by metro. The trade-off is light and crowds: Hazrati Imam is far better in the morning, and the bazaar food stalls are past their best after two.
Is it safe to wander the mahalla lanes?
Yes. Tashkent is a low-crime city and the neighbourhoods are residential and busy. The usual sense applies in the bazaar crowds, where pickpocketing is the only real risk. People are more likely to invite you in for tea than to bother you.
Do I need a guide?
Not for the walk. A guide adds most at Hazrati Imam, where the labelling is thin and the history is tangled, and at Kukeldash. If you hire one for two hours in the morning and walk the rest yourself, you get the best of both.
When is the bazaar busiest?
Sunday mornings, followed by Saturdays. Weekday mornings are calm enough to talk to vendors. Everything winds down in the late afternoon and the food stalls close first.
Featured image: Adam Harangozó (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons.