About Uzbekistan

Despite having not the most boring history and being quite a large city by Uzbekistan standards Karshi is not the most sophisticated city to explore as most the tourist landmarks are lying within one street. There is a long Uzbekskaya street from the railway station to the north dividing the New Town and the Old Town. And the place where the street crosses a shallow and turbid Kashkadarya river is the most interesting construction of the city, the Nikolayev Bridge (Nickolas Bridge).

It has 122 meters in length with 10 arches, 8 meters wide, 5 meters high above the water, and it is known since the 16th century, when Abdullah Khan II developed the state program of infrastructure development throughout the Bukhara Khanate, having built hundreds of bridges, dams and sardobas (water reservoir). But the Khanate steadily declined, most of those buildings by the 19th century came to desolation and worthlessness, and even this unique surviving bridge is called Nikolaevsky not without reason - it was repaired in 1914 by Russian engineers. Pavilions around the edges are in fact replicas: the originals were demolished in 1960, because they somehow prevented the public transport that was passing through the bridge.

The bridge serves also as a dam, and local people wash in the river with the greatest pleasure. You can see on the photos above Kashkadarya river below the dam in a natural channel. And this shallow river gives the name to the whole region. Water in this part of the world is indeed greatly appreciated.