Khiva

We have left Samarkand via the fast train to Tashkent and we then took an internal flight and bus to Khiva.

We are staying inside the walls of the old city which started in about the second century BC . This is the most intact ancient city as you will see from the photos. The main reason is that it has been raised to the ground several times and what we saw was mostly built in the 18th and 19th Century AD.  The city has had many rulers including Alexander, Genghis Khan and Timur. What we see was largely built by Uzbek Shaybanids as a slave trading town.

In the 18th and 19th century Tsarist Russia showed interest in the town and in 1873 finally sent a conquering army.