Silk Road Crafts – Artisans, Carpets & Ceramic Workshops

The legacy of the Silk Road is alive in Uzbekistan’s artisans. In workshops tucked into old city lanes, families continue crafts passed down for centuries. In Samarkand, paper is still made from mulberry bark, fibers softened, pressed, and dried by hand. In Rishtan, ceramics gleam with turquoise and green glazes unique to the valley’s clay. In Bukhara, carpets are woven on wooden looms, each knot a prayer, each pattern a story of mountains, rivers, and myths. You sit with artisans as they work, learning how colors are drawn from natural dyes, how patterns are inherited like family heirlooms. Children help, apprentices learn, and traditions endure. You may try your hand at spinning silk or shaping clay, discovering the patience each craft demands. Lunch is often taken in the home of a master artisan, where dishes of pilaf and fruit accompany stories of heritage. These encounters are not demonstrations but connections—threads of continuity that bind past to present.