About a year ago, I landed in Seoul for Frieze Week and immediately rushed to a dinner announcing the Bukhara Biennial, a new contemporary art and culture festival in Uzbekistan that was slated to open in September 2025. First, an admission: I had no idea where Bukhara was, let alone what the ancient city on the Silk Road had to offer. But that night served as a prelude to what was to come: meaningful conversations with artists, a beautiful setting, and delicious, soul-warming food.
The Korea-Uzbekistan connection may not be obvious. In 1937, Stalin exiled approximately 172,000 Koreans from the Russian Far East to Central Asia. Now, Uzbekistan has the fifth-largest Korean diaspora in the world. A year later, I found myself on a plane from Seoul to Uzbekistan.
Bukhara is the strategic midpoint of the famed Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, layered with Russian influences from decades of being part of the Soviet Union until 1991. UNESCO inscribed the city’s historic center as a World Heritage Site in 1993, recognizing it as “the most complete example of a medieval city in Central Asia”—thanks to a mosaic of mosques, madrasas, bazaars, caravanserais, and residential areas reflecting over 2,000 years of history. It’s an excellent departure from the usual tourist-saturated destinations if you’re looking to experience a bit of history, beauty, craft, and wonder, all within one walkable city.
“Bukhara needs more attention, and it would be great to have people coming here every two years, discovering more, and seeing from different angles,” said Gayane Umerova, commissioner of the Bukhara Biennial.
The opening weekend of the inaugural Bukhara Biennial, which continues through November 20, brought an international contingent of creatives, including Bangkok-based creative consultant and Philip Huang co-founder Chomwan Weeraworawit, New York-based artist and culinary designer Laila Gohar, and the Tashkent-based Uzbek fashion designer and artist Jenia Kim (also known as J.Kim) to the ancient city. Both Gohar and Kim are showing as part of the biennial; Gohar fashioned a tiny pavilion made of the rock sugar Uzbeks use to sweeten their tea, while Kim created an installation inspired by the city’s whimsical stork scissors.
On September 5, a select group gathered in the candlelit courtyard of Sitorai Mohi-Khosa (Palace of Moon and Stars), the summer residence of the Emirs of the city for a welcome gala. The night recalled the feasts of the past as long banquet tables bordered a candlelit courtyard, shisha smoke wafted through the rose-filled gardens, and guests took selfies in the palace’s mirrored halls. Now home to Bukhara’s Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts, visitors can relive the decadent surroundings of court life. “It was really the center of the world, and now the world is changing, and these places are emerging again,” Fanny Boucher, the Paris-based jewelry designer behind Bangla Begum, told me as guests gathered for a post-dinner drink.
“The whole city is like a big living outdoor museum,” Bukhara Biennial artistic director Diana Campbell told me over ice cream a few days later. You’ll see what Campbell is talking about if you visit the 16th-century Khoja Kalon Mosque, one of the most striking parts of the biennial.
Enter through Colombian artist Delcy Morelos’s turmeric-infused pyramid, on to British sculptor Antony Gormley’s human forms made with bricks, before seeing Ruben Saakyan’s floral gardens hidden between dunes as a wave comprised of thousands of colorful headscarves hangs above in a sculpture Kyrgyzstan artist Jazgul Madazimova created as an homage to her mother and other female relatives’ strengths and vulnerabilities.
Bukhara is perfect for those tired of destinations overrun with tourists, but to truly enjoy its beauty, one must surrender to the slowness of the city; this is a city calibrated to shade, craft, tea, and talk, not speed.
“There’s no better time than to be here now,” the content creator, jewelry designer, and wine producer known as The Gstaad Guy told me in the middle of one of the biennial sites, the Gavkushon Madrasa (a traditional Islamic place of learning, like a college) beneath the Suchi Reddy-designed canopy that offered shade from the blazing sun and 95-degree heat. “It’s one of the most magical places I’ve seen in my life.”
While Bukhara’s charm outpaces its luxury infrastructure, I see what he means when I immediately fall for Lyabi House Hotel, where I stayed during my visit to the city. The former residence of a wealthy Bukharan merchant built in 1887, it’s also the location of one of the city’s most charming food destinations, Restaurant Ayvan, boasting a large veranda with intricately carved wood columns, and interior walls decorated in floral paintings and geometric patterns overlooking a quiet courtyard. It’s tucked down a side lane off Lyabi-Hauz (“by the pond”), the city’s social square built around a 17th-century pool and famously shaded by centuries-old mulberry trees—their leaves feed the silkworms that built this region’s textile wealth. Three monuments frame the plaza: the Kukeldash Madrasa to the north, the Nadir Divan-Begi Khanaka (a Sufi lodge) to the west, and across from it the Nadir Divan-Begi Madrasa, its façade alive with mythical birds. Sip tea, people-watch, then buy the stork-shaped scissors—a witty nod to the birds that once nested on the domes.
For textiles, Bukhara is a paradise. With its Silk Road legacy and abundance of surrounding cotton fields, the city is an ideal place to score high-quality handmade Ikat garments made with a special resist-dyeing technique on the yarns before they are woven into a cloth with the distinct pattern. Campbell took me to Feruza’s Ikat Gallery, where I eyed a pair of Ikat-print Mary Janes, made with a labor-intensive silk velvet that Feruza tells me is the most expensive fabric in Bukhara. I also try on a sweet lavender Ikat robe woven with a turquoise heart pattern—fitting, considering the theme for the biennial is “Recipes for Broken Hearts.” Feruza also created the fabric for artist Himali Singh Soin, who lined the Old City’s canals with an Ikat-print featuring the declining Aral Sea. Pavillon Kalon is another option for high-quality Ikat across the Old Town.
To eat like a local, enjoy plump, juicy dumplings served with yogurt called manti or the tasty, dill-infused pickled cucumbers and tomatoes—Uzbekistan is known for producing the tastiest in the region—at Joy Gastro Restaurant, just off Lyabi Hauz. Make sure to try other local dishes, like lagman, an Uyghur-style hand-pulled noodle covered in a greasy tomato-based sauce with ground beef or lamb on the rooftop terrace of Old Bukhara. Plov, the national dish consisting of rice, meat, and vegetables, is a little like a pilaf, and served as the starting point for Recipes for Broken Hearts. (Legend has it that it was created to cure a prince’s broken heart after he lost his appetite when he couldn’t marry a merchant’s daughter).
One of the most magical nights I spent in Bukhara was at Po-i Kalyan (at the foot of the Great [minaret]) beneath the glow of the lunar eclipse on September 7. The magnificent square, bordered by the towering Kalyan Minaret, the vast Kalyan Mosque, and just opposite, the grand Mir-i Arab Madrasa, originates from the 12th century, until Genghis Khan and his forces destroyed the original mosque in 1220, leaving only the minaret. The 16th-century rebuild still defines the skyline. No visit to Bukhara is complete without standing there after dark, when the brick turns honey-gold and the air cools.
And of course, the Bukhara Biennial is another reason to visit the city now, using its historical madrasas and mosques as the backdrop for contemporary art. “It will broaden associations: beyond ancient architecture, Bukhara will also be seen as a center for contemporary art and the reinterpretation of crafts,” said Kim. “In this way, the city is seen not only as a keeper of tradition but also as a place where contemporary art, ideas, and perspectives intersect on its streets.”