Khiva from dawn to dusk

A DAY IN KHIVA

Stephen Scourfield revisits the walled city of Khiva.

MORNING

There is the rhythmical sound of sweeping — brooms with thin, blond bristles waft the dust of the Kyzyl Kum Desert up into the amber shafts of early sunlight.

It is accompanied by the sing-song conversation in Uzbek. Dawn chatter. The stream of Uzbek words echo around the remote, medieval walled city of Khiva, here in the deserts of Central Asia.

Khiva dates to the sixth century. Its earliest inhabitants came from nearby Iran. Turkic speakers became the majority, and Muslim beliefs replaced Zoroastrianism, largely due to the tax relief offered by the ruling Khan of Khiva in the seventh century.

Khiva has been destroyed 10 times — once by the army of Genghis Khan and again by the Uzbek ruler Emir Temur.

In 1873, Russian Empire forces seized the town, which was then absorbed into the Soviet Union in 1924. Uzbekistan became independent in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, but the walled town of Khiva was listed by UNESCO a year before that.

The inner town of Khiva, Itchan Kala, protected by those brick walls, which are up to 10m high, was the last resting place of caravans before crossing the desert to Iran.

The walls have their foundations in the 10th century, but the present-day 10m faces and crenellations are of late 17th century origin.

And today they largely surround and pen us tourists.

I’m staying at the Orient Star Hotel Khiva (hotelorientstarkhiva.uz/en-gb) — a converted madrasah, or Islamic school. It was the biggest madrasah in Khiva, dating from the 19th century.

It became a hotel in the 1970s, but has lasted well.

With a big courtyard, and mosaics of blue and turquoise patterns, the madrasah is right beside a big minaret. Its base diameter is more than 14m.

A local story is that an official climbed the tower during its construction, to check on its progress, and realised he could see over the wall of the Khan’s adjacent harem. He saw the unveiled women inside. Work was stopped at 26m.

Khiva’s story gently unfolds on a morning stroll.

By comparison to the unfinished minaret, Khiva also has the tallest minaret in Uzbekistan, which is banded with patterns.

Its old citadel (the Khans’ palace) has three courtyards and the harem where girls were brought, perhaps from the age of eight, and expelled (used, as it were) when they were 18. Often they were brought here an given up for non-payment of taxes.

There are more than 50 historic monuments in the inner town, Itchan Kala — and also more than 200 homes and 3000 residents.

Most of these homes were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, but I stand and watch three men mixing mud and straw by hand, as they make a new wall, just as walls have long been made here.

The Djuma mosque, first built in the 10th century but rebuilt in 1788, is a wooden structure dominated by 200 carved timber columns (which white ants love).

AFTERNOON

The daytime temperature can reach 48C in the summer. “In the shade,” one local tells me. And yet winter turns up quickly and temperatures as low as -30C have been recorded.

A range of more than 70C.

So thick, long lasting knitted wool socks, which are about $3 a pair, dominate the market stalls. There are elaborate fur hats, many imported from Russia.

In summer, they look bizarre, of course. But they are a reminder that winter will just turn up.

I walk courtyards of blue tiles and mosaics and big courtyards full of sun. And I see the circular platforms where woollen felt yurts (tents) stood in winter.

There were originally 11 gates in the town’s 2200m-long walls but now there are four, and I step through one, to the outer town, called Dichan Kala.

I need some everyday shopping . . . deodorant, toothpaste. It’s such a pleasure to be shopping for something ordinary (not souvenirs), in everyday shops. I’m the only Westerner as I walk the ordinary folks’ bazaar, partly outside and partly under a roof. Behind the fresh produce and butcheries, I find a stall with an odd mix of household products. We use sign language (with quite a few people involved) to agree the price, and I am farewelled.

Back inside the walls, I am herded back into tourism. Khiva is busy with Europeans.

Uzbekistan might have once been off usual tourism routes — in 2015, about two million visited. But in 2025, that had risen to 11.7 million foreign visitors — nearly 47 per cent more than in the same period of 2024. Of those, only about a million will find their way to Khiva.

Uzbekistan is Muslim but with a secular, tolerant and temperate nature. I am repeatedly told that “hospitality is rated higher than courage”.

I retreat from the light. Down a tunnel-like passage, my but spacious room is dark, with a big bathroom. I open the small, high window and the day floods in.

EVENING

The moon is full. It rises through a dusty golden sunset.

And it has a strong connection to this moment and this place. For on the far side of the moon, there’s a crater called Al-Khwarizmi — named for Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, who lived from about AD780-850 and is credited with establishing the bases for the innovation of both algebra and trigonometry.

He wrote the mathematical book The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing about AD 830. It is a detailed account of how to solve polynomial equations up to the second degree.

From there, the term “algorithm” comes from the technique of doing arithmetic with Hindu-Arabic numbers developed by al-Khwarizmi.

He is considered the father of the algorithm, and down the tree of development come the functions of your phone, computer and tablet.

But all the digital world drops away.

I’m standing on the highest lookout on the city wall, watching that moon rise as the light fades.

Minarets take on the magic of the spiritual lighthouses for which they were named.

Among the old houses of Itchan Kala, some of the souvenir sellers are packing up, while others are preparing for the evening shift.

The lights are on in the many good restaurants, and musicians begin to play.

The evening is mellow. The desert wind is pushing in. Night is coming.

And suddenly everyone else leaves down the steep steps and I’m alone, high over this ancient city; this staging post, a caravanserai, on the Great Silk Road.