Ayaz Qala II. Dominating the surrounding desert |
Khiva, like Bukhara, was a powerful city state on built on an old oasis between the Kyzl Kum and Kara Kum deserts. It grew to become a major trading post on the Silk Road, building up a specialty in slave trading. Khiva continued to grow and developed a small empire, including much of modern day Turkmenistan, before it was overcome by Russian forces in 1873. With the formation of the Soviet Union it was included rather strangely in Uzbekistan, despite its people being mainly Turkmen in origin, and its history intertwined with that of Turkmenistan.
I have always enjoyed traveling by train. It probably dates back to my childhood. We did not have much money when I was growing up, and yet almost every weekend my father took myself and my brother on a train trip to see every corner, every museum, every historical building, and every bloody railway station in the UK. It was a great education which left me with an abiding love of history, and travel.