Museums of Samarkand: where to learn the city’s history

Samarkand’s monuments are impressive on their own, but they cover only part of the city’s story. The Registan, Gur-Emir and Shah-i-Zinda belong mostly to the 14th–17th centuries. Samarkand, however, is about 2,700 years old: it was a Sogdian capital, an early Islamic centre of learning, a Mongol ruin, Timur’s capital and a Russian colonial town. Museums fill in these chapters and show the objects of daily life, coins, ceramics, textiles, jewellery and manuscripts, that bring the buildings to life.

If you visit one museum, make it this one. Built on the site of ancient Samarkand, it displays the famous Ambassadors’ Painting, 7th-century Sogdian murals of envoys from China, Korea and the steppe, together with ossuaries, figurines, coins and the calligraphic glazed bowls of the Samanid era. A model of the ancient city shows how big it was before the Mongol destruction. See our separate Afrasiyab guide for details.

Next to the excavated meridian arc of Ulugbek’s observatory, a small museum tells the story of the astronomer-prince and his scholars, with copies of the star catalogue, miniatures and models. It is a short visit, best combined with the observatory itself.

Samarkand’s main history museum, part of the state museum-reserve, presents the city’s past from prehistory to the 20th century. Its collections include archaeological finds, Timurid-era objects, manuscripts, costumes, jewellery, carpets and suzani embroidery, and displays on the crafts of the region. Exhibitions are periodically rearranged and some halls may be closed for renovation, so ask your guide what is currently on show. Labels are in Uzbek and Russian, increasingly also in English.

In the 19th-century part of the city, a mansion built in the early 20th century by a wealthy merchant family houses a regional museum. The house itself is the highlight: rooms with painted ceilings, gilded plaster decoration and carved woodwork combine Central Asian and European styles, showing the taste of Samarkand’s merchants at the end of the Russian imperial era. Exhibits cover the history of the city and the region, including the life of its Bukharan Jewish community.

Several smaller museums are worth a visit for specific interests:

• The Konigil paper workshop outside the city, a living museum of Samarkand paper-making.
• The Khovrenko winery, with a small museum of the city’s wine-making history and a tasting room.
• The house-museum of Sadriddin Aini, a writer of the early 20th century who wrote in Tajik and Uzbek, near the Registan.
• Museums inside monuments, such as photographs of the Registan’s restoration in the Tilya-Kori madrasah.

Museums in Uzbekistan often close one day a week and have shorter hours in winter, so check before you go. Tickets are inexpensive, and photography may require an extra fee. A good approach is to start your stay with the Afrasiyab museum for context, see the monuments, and finish with the history museum or the merchant’s house. A guide who knows the collections will help you find the most significant objects quickly.

Children usually enjoy the Afrasiyab museum most, thanks to the large city model, the weapons and the colourful murals; the Ulugbek observatory museum works well for older children interested in space and science. Photographers should ask about photo tickets at the entrance and avoid flash near paintings and textiles. Halls are often cool in summer, which makes a museum visit a good choice for the hottest hours of the day, between noon and four o’clock, when the open-air monuments are uncomfortable.