The Afrosiyob

For most of history, the road between the great cities of Uzbekistan was measured in days. Caravans crossed from Tashkent to Samarkand and on to Bukhara through heat and dust, and the traveller counted the journey in nights on the ground. Today you can do the same run between breakfast and lunch, in an air-conditioned seat, at up to 250 kilometres an hour — aboard the Afrosiyob.

The Afrosiyob is a Spanish-built Talgo 250, and when it entered service in October 2011 it became the first high-speed train in all of Central Asia. There is something wonderful about the contradiction of it: a sleek European bullet train, all curved nose and tinted glass, flying across the same desert the Silk Road caravans once crawled over, past mud-brick villages, cotton fields and grazing sheep, to set you down at the foot of some of the most beautiful buildings ever raised by human hands.

It takes a little over two hours to reach Samarkand, city of Tamerlane, where the three great madrasahs of the Registan face one another across a single square. Push on and in about four hours from the capital you are in Bukhara — holiest and most haunting of the Silk Road cities, a warren of domes and minarets barely changed in centuries.

The train is named for Afrasiab, the ancient site of old Samarkand and the legendary Turanian king of Persian epic — a fitting name for a machine that has collapsed the distances of the Silk Road. This is not a heritage ride or a tourist special; it is Uzbekistan's everyday fast train, and it happens to be one of the most rewarding railway journeys on earth.

The journey begins in Tashkent, Uzbekistan's sprawling, tree-lined capital and the largest city in Central Asia. Its main station is modern and orderly; you pass through an airport-style security check, find your reserved coach, and settle into seats that would not look out of place on a Spanish AVE — because, in effect, they are. The Talgo 250 trainsets were built by Talgo of Spain: two power cars bracketing eight low-slung passenger coaches and a bistro car, some 257 seats in all, in three classes.

Pulling out of the capital, the train quickly finds its stride. The suburbs give way to open country, and the Afrosiyob settles into a smooth, near-silent cruise across the Mirzachul steppe and the irrigated cotton lands of the Syr Darya basin. Attendants come round with tea and pastries; the desert slides past the window at a speed that makes the old caravan distances feel absurd. In two hours and ten minutes the train slows for Samarkand.

Samarkand's station sits a few kilometres from the monuments, but the payoff is close at hand: the Registan, Gur-e-Amir, Shah-i-Zinda and the great Bibi-Khanym mosque, a concentration of turquoise-tiled splendour with few equals anywhere. Many travellers break the trip here for a day or two before boarding another Afrosiyob west.

Beyond Samarkand the line runs on through Navoi and across increasingly arid country toward Bukhara — a total of about 600 kilometres from Tashkent, covered in roughly four hours. One thing to know: the Afrosiyob's Bukhara station is actually in the town of Kagan, about ten kilometres from the old city, so a short taxi ride waits at the end. Then the minarets rise from the plain, and you step down into a city that has been trading, praying and teaching on the same streets for more than a thousand years.

The Afrosiyob runs several times a day in each direction, with the heaviest cluster of departures in the morning. Not every train runs the full distance to Bukhara — some turn back at Samarkand — so check the destination when you book.

A representative selection of Tashkent → Samarkand → Bukhara departures, as of the 2026 timetable (checked July 2026):

Westbound return, Bukhara → Tashkent, includes early-afternoon departures such as train 769 (Bukhara 14:58 → Tashkent 19:17) and 767 (Bukhara 16:11 → Tashkent 20:31), plus frequent Samarkand–Tashkent services through the day.

Good to know:

• Book early. Afrosiyob seats are reserved and the morning departures — especially in spring and autumn — sell out several days ahead. Reserve as soon as your dates are fixed.
• Three classes. Economy seats are arranged 2+2; Business and VIP are a roomier 2+1 with more legroom. All have air-conditioning and power sockets, and tea and pastries are served.
• Journey times. Tashkent–Samarkand is about 2 h 10–2 h 30; Tashkent–Bukhara about 4 h 20. The headline "250 km/h" is the line's design speed — day to day the train cruises a little below it, but it is still comfortably the fastest way across the country.
• The Bukhara station is in Kagan. Allow for a 20-minute taxi from the station into Bukhara's old town.
• A cheaper alternative. If the Afrosiyob is full, the older, slower Sharq trains cover the same route for roughly half the fare.

Times as of the 2026 timetable and subject to change. Always confirm current departures with the operator before you travel (see the Tickets section below).

Tickets for the Afrosiyob are sold by Uzbekistan Railways (Oʻzbekiston Temir Yoʻllari) through its official online booking site and at every city railway station. Booking online in advance is much the easiest way — the morning trains fill up quickly, and turning up on the day often means no seats at all in peak season.

You will choose between three classes — Economy, Business and VIP — all of them comfortable, with the higher classes offering wider 2+1 seating and a little more space. Fares are modest by international standards, and even VIP is affordable; the price difference between classes is small enough that many travellers simply take the best seat available.

Buy a reserved seat for the specific train you want; there is no turn-up-and-go on the Afrosiyob. Have your passport to hand, as it is required both to book and to board. If the high-speed train is sold out, the same operator runs the slower Sharq trains on the same route at a lower fare — a good fallback for a flexible traveller.

The whole point of the Afrosiyob is the string of cities it connects, and each one deserves days rather than hours. What follows is what to do once you have seen the obvious things — and the obvious things really are worth the trip.

The unmissable ones

In Samarkand, the Registan — three madrasahs facing a single square, their façades a blaze of blue tilework — is one of the most photographed sights on the planet, and much better at dusk when the crowds thin. Nearby stand the ribbed dome of the Gur-e-Amir, Tamerlane's tomb, and the extraordinary Shah-i-Zinda, an avenue of tiled mausoleums climbing a hillside like a corridor of jewels. Above the modern city rises Afrasiab, the tell of Samarkand's earliest incarnation, whose museum holds the seventh-century Sogdian wall paintings found here in 1965 — the "Hall of the Ambassadors" cycle, showing envoys arriving at the Sogdian court.

In Bukhara, which is quieter and more intimate — a living old city rather than a set of monuments — wander the covered bazaars and the Lyab-i-Hauz, a shaded pool ringed by mulberry trees and teahouses, and climb the Kalyan Minaret in the Po-i-Kalyan. Give the city two nights and let yourself get lost.

Tashkent

Worth a night at either end. The capital has leafy boulevards and a famously ornate Soviet-era metro — built from 1977 to double as a nuclear shelter, which is why photography in it was forbidden until the ban was lifted in July 2018; you may now shoot the stations freely, and they are worth a fare each. Chorsu Bazaar sits under a blue dome 80 metres across, designed in 1980 by Vladimir Azimov and Sabir Adylov: vast, working, and not in the least a tourist attraction. The old Hazrati Imam quarter is below.

Beyond the Afrosiyob's reach, the walled desert city of Khiva completes the Silk Road quartet — reached on our companion journey, the train west across the Kyzylkum.

Because the Afrosiyob makes hopping between the cities so easy, the natural plan is to sleep in the old cities themselves and let the train carry you between them.

In Samarkand, stay in the streets around the Registan and Gur-e-Amir, where a wave of small boutique hotels and family-run guesthouses has opened in restored courtyard houses — often with a rooftop or garden and views of a floodlit dome. It is the loveliest base in the country, and you are minutes on foot from the great monuments.

Bukhara is even more atmospheric for an overnight: many of its guesthouses occupy converted madrasahs and merchants' houses around the Lyab-i-Hauz, with tiled courtyards and breakfast served beside the pool. Waking inside the old city, with the call to prayer drifting over the rooftops, is one of the quiet pleasures of a Bukhara stay.

In Tashkent, handy for a night before or after your rail days, you will find the full range — international business hotels, mid-range chains and hostels — much of it within easy reach of the railway station and the metro.

Prices across Uzbekistan are gentle, service is warm, and rooms are generally easy to find outside the very peak of spring and autumn. Booking a night or two ahead in Samarkand and Bukhara is wise in high season, when the best courtyard guesthouses fill up.