Tashkent in 3 days

State Museum of History of Uzbekistan (the Национальный музей истории Узбекистана — in the central Independence Square area; the most important historical museum in Central Asia; the collection: the prehistoric Uzbekistan section (the Neanderthal remains from the Teshik-Tash Cave (discovered 1938; a Neanderthal child burial with ibex horns — one of the most significant Neanderthal archaeological discoveries of the 20th century; the cave is in the Baysun Mountains of southern Uzbekistan)); the Sogdian section (the Afrasiab Murals — the replica of the 6th-7th century CE Sogdian frescoes from the royal reception hall of Afrasiab (the ancient city near Samarkand); the originals are in the Afrasiab Museum in Samarkand; the frescoes depict the diplomatic embassy scene with representatives from China, India, Persia, the Byzantine Empire and the Silk Road city-states converging on the Sogdian ruler — the most comprehensive single image of the Silk Road world in existence)); the Timurid section (the Timurid dynasty (1370-1506) artefacts from Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent).

Alisher Navoi National Opera and Ballet Theatre (the Алишер Навоий номидаги миллий академик опера ва балет театри — the most important performing arts building in Central Asia; built 1939-1947 by the Japanese prisoners of war (the POWs from the Battle of Khalkhin Gol (1939) and from the Manchuria campaign (1945 — at the end of WWII, the Soviet Union took approximately 600,000 Japanese prisoners and used them as forced labour in Soviet construction projects; Tashkent received approximately 1,000-2,000 Japanese POWs who built the opera theatre between 1944-1947); the building (the eclectic Central Asian style designed by the Soviet architect Aleksei Shchusev (who also designed the Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow); the 6 entrance foyers each decorated in a different regional Uzbek architectural style (Bukhara, Samarkand, Khiva, Fergana, Tashkent, Termez)) — the building is a cultural encyclopedia of Uzbek regional architecture in a single complex); the theatre programme (Russian and Uzbek opera, classical ballet, Uzbek folk dance — the programme is a mix of Soviet-era Russian classics and the Uzbek national repertoire including Navoi-text operas).

Independence Square (Mustaqillik Maydoni — formerly Lenin Square; the Soviet-era main square rebuilt after the 1966 earthquake as the showpiece of socialist urbanism; the square (700 × 380 m — one of the largest squares in the former Soviet Union) was designed to accommodate the annual November 7 parade of military equipment and marching soldiers; the Lenin statue that dominated the square was replaced after independence with the Globe of Uzbekistan (the large golden globe with Uzbekistan at its centre, surrounded by the "Happy Mother" statue — the socialist-realist figure replaced by the nationalist figure but the monumental scale maintained); the Cabinet of Ministers building (the Soviet-era government headquarters); the Crying Mother memorial (the WWII memorial for the 1 million Uzbeks who died in the Second World War — the eternal flame, the war museum and the Book of Remembrance (the names of the Uzbek soldiers engraved in the pages of the giant stone book)); the Amir Timur Square (the statue of Timur (Tamerlane) on horseback at the centre of the city, the icon of Uzbek national identity post-independence).

Tashkent evening dining (the finest traditional Uzbek dining in the capital): the shashlik (the Central Asian lamb skewers — the universally beloved dish of the entire region; the Uzbek shashlik uses the tail fat (dumbak) of the Karakul sheep (the fat-tailed sheep of Central Asia) alternated on the skewer between the lean lamb; the fat bastes the lean meat from within as it cooks over the saxaul (the desert wood — the only wood that burns hot enough for true shashlik (temperatures reaching 700°C)); the samsa (the Uzbek baked pastry triangle filled with lamb and onion — the Uzbek street food version of the samosa; baked in the tandir (the clay oven) rather than deep-fried; the dough is laminated like puff pastry but richer; the crispy exterior and the juicy lamb interior are the defining combination); the lagman (the pulled wheat noodle soup with the wok-tossed lamb and vegetable topping — the most popular street food in Tashkent; the noodles are hand-pulled to order).

The Afrosiyob high-speed train (the Tashkent-Samarkand express — opened 2011 using Spanish Talgo 250 tilting train technology; the journey from Tashkent to Samarkand takes 2h10 (vs 7h by road); the train runs at 250 km/h through the Central Asian steppe and the Zerafshan valley; the departure time (the earliest trains depart 07:00 from Tashkent Central Railway Station (Toshkent Vokzali) — the station building (the Stalin-era architectural hybrid of Soviet grandeur and Uzbek ornamental detail) is itself an architectural landmark; the ticket price (UZS 85,000-130,000 (€8-12) depending on class); the booking (tickets must be purchased in advance at the station or via the Uzbek railway website (railway.uz) — trains sell out on popular days); the station food stalls sell the non bread and the dried apricots for the journey.

The Registan (Samarkand — the central ensemble of the three madrasas (Islamic theological schools): Ulugh Beg Madrasa (1420 — built by the astronomer-sultan Ulugh Beg, grandson of Tamerlane; the distinctive lions and suns (shamsiyya) on the portal tilework (normally forbidden in Islamic art — the depiction of living creatures; Ulugh Beg's tolerance of figurative art in the madrasa tilework caused controversy among conservative scholars); Sher-Dor Madrasa (1636 — "Lion-Bearing" madrasa; the famous tigers-with-suns on the portal tympanum — again the figurative art that was considered innovative and controversial in its time); Tilla-Kari Madrasa (1660 — "Gold-Covered" madrasa; the interior gold-gilded ceiling of the mosque section (the gilded stalactite muqarnas vault — the most opulent interior in Samarkand)); the Registan ensemble is the most celebrated Islamic architectural composition in the world outside the Alhambra and the Süleymaniye in Istanbul.

Shah-i-Zinda (the "Shrine of the Living King" — the avenue of mausoleums on the sacred hill in Samarkand; the complex has 11 mausoleums built between the 11th and 15th centuries, predominantly for the female relatives of Tamerlane (his wives, sisters, nieces) and for the first Islamic missionaries to Samarkand (the companions of Qutham ibn Abbas, the Prophet Muhammad's cousin, who brought Islam to the city in the 7th century CE); the tilework (the Shah-i-Zinda tilework is the finest in Central Asia — the deep lapis lazuli and cobalt blue tiles with the arabesque and calligraphic programmes; each mausoleum portal is different and the variety of techniques (underglaze painting, mosaic tilework, carved terracotta, gold lustre) visible in a single 200-metre avenue represents the complete evolution of Central Asian tilework technology from the 11th to the 15th century); the Bibi-Khanym Mosque (the enormous ruined mosque built by Tamerlane 1399-1404 for his Chinese wife Bibi-Khanym — the largest mosque in the Islamic world when completed).

Gur-e-Amir (the "Tomb of the King" — Tamerlane's mausoleum in Samarkand; built 1403-1404 (Tamerlane died in 1405 before the construction was complete; he was buried here by his grandson Ulugh Beg); the ribbed turquoise dome (the fluted melon-shaped dome of turquoise glazed tiles on the 35 m cylindrical drum — the prototype for all subsequent Timurid and Mughal domed mausoleums, including the Taj Mahal (the Mughal emperors were the direct descendants of Tamerlane through Babur — the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) was the Timurid successor state in India; the Taj Mahal's dome can be traced architecturally to the Gur-e-Amir); the interior (the jadite cenotaph (the dark green jade slab over Tamerlane's grave — the largest piece of carved jade in the world; below the cenotaph, in the crypt, is the actual grave of Tamerlane; the Soviet anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov opened the tomb in June 1941 (finding confirmation of Tamerlane's lameness (the origin of "Timur-e-Lang" — Timur the Lame)); return Afrosiyob to Tashkent.