Navruz
21 March, the spring equinox — a New Year welcomed with cauldrons of sumalak, green samsa, street festivities and neighbourhood clean-ups.
Traditional dress
Ikat silk dresses, adras, embroidered robes and skullcaps — the traditional costume that colours Samarkand’s streets at weddings, Eid and Navruz.
© Nikolai Bulykin, CC BY-SA 4.0
Atlas, adras and the chapan
Uzbek dress is built on handwoven silk and half-silk fabrics. Atlas is a lustrous silk made by the abrbandi (ikat) method, in which the threads are resist-dyed before weaving so that a blurred, cloud-like pattern emerges; adras is a heavier cloth of silk and cotton. Women wear an atlas dress over loose trousers with a short waistcoat and a headscarf, adding a gold-embroidered skullcap and jewellery on festive days.
Men’s traditional dress is the long robe — toʻn or chapan — with a sash and a doppi. The robe has long been a mark of honour, and draping one over a distinguished guest is still customary. In the 19th century Bukhara’s gold brocade robes and Samarkand’s kimkhob robes were exported and won prizes at international exhibitions; the Samarkand robe was cut long and moderately wide, showing the influence of both Bukhara and Tashkent–Fergana styles.
In Samarkand today
Day to day, Samarkand dresses in modern clothes, but at weddings, Eid and Navruz the streets fill with atlas and adras dresses and embroidered robes. Bridal outfits — especially for the kelin salom ceremony — still centre on national dress. To see costumes of different periods and regions on stage, catch a show at Samarkand’s El Merosi theatre of historical costume.
Atlas, adras and skullcaps are sold at Siyob Bazaar and in craft shops, and local tailors will make clothes to order from traditional fabric.
Traditions
Traditions
Mahalla and hashar
The neighbourhood community gathered around its guzar square, which shares weddings and funerals and keeps its streets in shape through hashar — the backbone of Samarkand life.
Hospitality and the dastarkhan
‘A guest ranks above your father’: in a Samarkand home the guest takes the seat of honour, and bread, tea, sweets and hot dishes reach the dastarkhan in turn.
Weddings (toʻy)
From matchmaking to the bride’s bow — an Uzbek wedding is a chain of rituals, and in Samarkand its story reaches back to the age of Timur.
Ramadan and the Eids
Iftar evenings in the month of fasting, the sweet table of Eid al-Fitr and the sacrifice of Eid al-Adha — festivals whose dates move each year with the lunar calendar.
The teahouse and the gap
Every mahalla’s teahouse is the daily club of its men, while the gap is a long-standing custom of friends taking turns to host one another.
