Museum of Applied Arts, Tashkent

The house was built at the end of the 19th century for Alexander Polovtsev, a Russian diplomat who served in Turkestan and loved Central Asian art. Rather than a European mansion, he wanted a house in the local style, and he invited the finest craftsmen from Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Fergana to decorate it. They created a reception hall and rooms of extraordinary richness: walls covered in carved and painted ganch (alabaster), ceilings of painted and carved wood, carved doors and columns, and tiled panels.

After the revolution, the house became a museum of handicrafts in 1927, and in later decades the collection grew to become the State Museum of Applied Arts. The building itself is the first exhibit.

• The reception hall: the centrepiece of the house, a high room with a painted wooden ceiling, carved alabaster walls with niches, and a carved wooden screen. Take time to look up and around: every surface is decorated.
• The courtyard: a garden with an aivan on carved wooden columns, a quiet space in the middle of the city.
• Suzani: large embroidered hangings from Bukhara, Samarkand, Nurata, Shakhrisabz and Tashkent, showing the different regional styles of this famous craft.
• Ceramics: plates, bowls and jugs from the main pottery centres, Rishtan, Gijduvan, Khorezm and Tashkent, with their characteristic colours and patterns.
• Jewellery: silver and gold ornaments, headdresses, bracelets and amulets, often with coral and turquoise.
• Woodcarving and metalwork: carved doors, boxes, Quran stands, engraved copper and brass.
• Costumes and textiles: ikat robes, gold embroidery from Bukhara, skullcaps and carpets.
• Musical instruments.

The collection includes both historic pieces and work by modern masters, showing how traditions continue today.

If you plan to shop for crafts in Samarkand, Bukhara or Khiva, this museum is an excellent introduction. You will learn to recognise the styles of different regions, the difference between fine and ordinary work, and the meaning of common motifs such as pomegranates, almonds and the sun. It also shows what the interiors of wealthy houses looked like around 1900, before most of old Tashkent was lost in the 1966 earthquake.

Many patterns you will see in the museum, and later in shops and monuments, carry meaning. The pomegranate, full of seeds, stands for fertility and abundance. The almond and the pepper pod protect against the evil eye. The sun and moon discs of suzani are symbols of life and the cosmos. The tulip heralds spring and renewal. Knowing these symbols makes every suzani, plate and carved door more interesting.

The museum also shows how crafts were organised. Each city had its specialities and its guilds of masters, who trained apprentices for years and passed down patterns within families. Many of these traditions declined in the Soviet era, when production moved to factories, and were revived after independence, often by the descendants of the old masters.

Location: in central Tashkent, south-west of Amir Timur Square, in a residential street.

Metro: Kosmonavtlar station, about 10–15 minutes’ walk. See the Tashkent metro.

Tickets: an entrance fee; photography usually costs extra.

Opening hours: daily, with shorter hours on some days; check before you go.

Time needed: about an hour.

Shop: a shop in the museum sells good-quality crafts, including ceramics, suzani and textiles, at fixed prices, a useful reference before bargaining in the bazaars.

Combine with: the State Museum of History and the Kosmonavtlar metro station. See also shopping in Bukhara and shopping in Samarkand.