Current Time in Fergana, Uzbekistan

Fergana lies in the east of Uzbekistan, in the wide and fertile Fergana Valley, one of the most densely populated and agriculturally productive regions in Central Asia. Mountains enclose the valley on three sides, the Tian Shan to the north and the Alay and Turkestan ranges to the south, and their snows feed the rivers that irrigate its fields. Summers are long and very hot, winters are short and cold, and the air is dry, though the city's abundance of trees gives welcome shade.

Around three hundred thousand people live here, and the city is the capital of Fergana Region. Its economy rests on cotton processing, textiles, chemicals and one of the largest oil refineries in Central Asia, alongside the fruit and vegetable production for which the valley is famous throughout the former Soviet Union.

Unlike its ancient neighbours, Fergana is a young city. It was founded in 1876 as a Russian administrative and garrison centre shortly after the conquest of the Khanate of Kokand, and it was laid out on a deliberate plan, with broad avenues radiating from a central park and rows of shade trees planted along every street. Originally called New Margilan and later renamed after a Russian general, it took the name Fergana in 1924. That colonial planning is still its most distinctive feature, and the city is often described as the greenest in Uzbekistan, with pastel painted government buildings, fountains and parks that make it a pleasant place to walk.

The valley around it is the real attraction, and Fergana serves as the natural base for exploring it. Margilan, a short drive away, has been a centre of silk production for more than a thousand years, and its workshops still make ikat cloth by tying and dyeing the warp threads before weaving, producing the shimmering patterns known locally as abrbandi. Rishtan is renowned for ceramics glazed in a deep turquoise and blue derived from local clay and mineral pigments, and its potters supply teahouses across the country. Kokand preserves the ornate palace of the last khan, with its painted ceilings and tiled facade, along with madrasas and mosques from the era before Russian rule.

The valley has long been a crossroads. Silk Road caravans passed through it, Chinese chroniclers described its famous heavenly horses two thousand years ago, and the medieval astronomer known in Europe as Alfraganus came from this region. Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, was born in the valley and wrote longingly of its melons and gardens.

Local culture centres on the teahouse, the bazaar and the family table, with plov, samsa, fresh bread baked in clay ovens, apricots, pomegranates and grapes in abundance. Fergana State University and several institutes serve a young population.

Roads cross the mountains to Tashkent through a tunnel, trains reach the capital, and an airport connects the valley to Russia and beyond.

Fergana is valued as a comfortable, leafy base for discovering one of Central Asia's richest cultural landscapes.