About Uzbekistan

Uzbek wedding
07 July 2017
Uzbek wedding

Nikokh-Tui, wedding, is the most solemn and large Uzbek ceremony. Wedding ceremony traditionally is of great importance in the life of Uzbeks and celebrating as an important event. Uzbek people celebrate weddings very richly and cheerfully with peculiar splendor and abundance of guests. Immediate and remote relatives, neighbors, friends and co-workers are invited to this wedding ceremony.

Having one trait in common, the ceremony has its own peculiarities in various regions. The main moment of the wedding ceremony is moving of a bride from her parent’s home to the home of a bridegroom. In wedding day at bride’s home they eat wedding pilaf, which is cooked at bridegroom’s home and handed over to a bride. The guests eat the same pilaf in the bridegroom’s home. Today the morning pilaf is more frequently prepared in cafes or choykhanas: it is more comfortable and less troublesome for the hosts.

After the morning pilaf the groom with friends and relatives, musicians and dancers come to the house of the bride. The bride in the wedding clothes, today usually in the European white dress, is waiting in the special room, where only mullahs (priests) can come in. They ask her marital consent and then read the prayer – “nikokh”, which effects a marriage.

In wedding day Imam of a mosque says the newly married couple “Khutbai nikoh” (marriage prayer), after finishing this prayer they become a husband and wife before Allah (Lord of Highest). Imam explains the newly married couple rights and duties of husband and wife. Usually after executing nikoh newlyweds go to the registry office for registration of their civil marriage. In the wedding day bridegroom puts on sarpo (garments and shoes, presented by the bride’s party as a wedding gift), after that the bridegroom and his friends go to the bride’s home to greet her parents and relatives. After the bridegroom and his friends return home the bride herself comes there. Before leaving her native home for bridegroom’s home, the bride solemnizes the rite of parting with parents. She is accompanied with close friends. They sing traditional songs “Ulanlar” and “Yor-yor”.

The second part of the wedding ceremony is the farewell with parents and the home. Friends of the groom ship the bride’s dowry and the bride say goodbye to her parents and leaves the house accompanied with her friends and relatives, who sing farewell songs.

In the husband’s house women welcome the bride, singing traditional wedding songs. In front of the door there is the white track, payandoz, by which the bride enters the house. She stops before the door and makes “ostona salom”, the bow to the new house. Women strew her with flowers, sweets, money wishing her beautiful and rich life.

After the evening part of the wedding the groom goes with the bride to their new room. The bride is met by yanga, her relative or close friend. She changes bride’s clothes. After this the groom comes in the room and “pays a ransom” for the bride to yanga.

In the room “yanga” (usually a woman who is intimate with the bride) welcome the bride, then the bride changes her clothes and expects her bridegroom coming, staying behind the “gushanga” (curtain). Not long after the bridegroom accompanied with his close friend “yanga” appears by the room’s door and together with “yanga” goes to the curtain, where his bride is waiting for him. For the purpose of coming in the bride’s place he should symbolically buy out her from the “yanga”, so they start haggling. Thereafter the bride and the bridegroom stay alone for the night.

Early morning “Kelin salomi” (bride’s greeting) rite is solemnized. By the beginning of the ceremony the bridegroom’s parents, all near relatives, the bridegroom’s friends and closest neighbors gather outside. All people in turn come up to the bride with wishes, presents and blessings. The bride is obliged to welcome them, low bowing from the waist and give present to every greeting person. Thereby the festive occasion finishes and family life begins.

Uzbek wedding

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Did you know?

Uzbekistan is one of only two countries in the world to be ‘double landlocked’ (landlocked and totally surrounded by other landlocked countries). Liechtenstein is double landlocked by 2 countries whilst Uzbekistan is surrounded by 5!

Did you know that Uzbekistan lies in the very heart of Eurasia, the coordinates for Uzbekistan are 41.0000° N, 69.0000°

Uzbekistan is home to the Muruntan gold mine, one of the largest open pit gold mines in the world! The country has 4th largest reserves of gold in the world after South Africa, USA and Russia

Uzbekistan is the world capital of melons. They have in excess of 150 different varieties, which form a staple part of the local diet, served fresh in the summer and eaten dried through the winter.

It is Uzbek tradition that the most respected guest be seated farthest from the house’s entrance.

Tashkent’s metro features chandeliers, marble pillars and ceilings, granite, and engraved metal. It has been called one of the most beautiful train stations in the world.

The Uzbek master chef is able to cook in just one caldron enough plov to serve a thousand men.

When you are a host to someone, it is your duty to fill their cups with for the whole time they are with you.  What you must not do, however, is to fill their cup more than half-full.  If you do that as a mistake, say it is a mistake immediately.  Doing it means you want them to leave.  Wow!  Amazing, right?

To Uzbeks, respect means a whole lot.  For this reason they love it if, even as foreigners, you endeavour to add the respectful suffix opa after a woman's name; and aka after a man's.  Example: Linda-opa and David-aka.  You could also use hon and jon respectively.

Having been an historic crossroads for centuries as part of various ancient empires, Uzbekistan’s food is very eclectic. It has its roots in Iranian, Arab, Indian, Russian and Chinese cuisine.

Though identified with the Persia, the Zoroastrism probably originated in Bactria or Sogdiana. Many distinguished scholars share an opinion that Zoroastrianism had originated in the ancient Khorezm. Indeed, today in the world there were found 63 Zoroastrian monuments, including those in Iran, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Thirty-eight of them are in Uzbekistan, whereas 17 of these monuments are located in Khorezm.

One of Islam's most sacred relics - the world's oldest Koran that was compiled in Medina by Othman, the third caliph or Muslim leader, is kept in Tashkent. It was completed in the year 651, only 19 years after Muhammad's death. 

Tashkent is the only megapolis in the world where public transport is totally comprised of Mercedes buses. And due to low urban air polution it is one of the few cities where one can still see the stars in the sky.

You would be surprised to know that modern TV was born in Tashkent. No joke! The picture of moving objects was transmitted by radio first time in the world in Tashkent on 26 of July 1928 by inventors B.P. Grabovsky and I.F. Belansky.

Uzbekistan is the only country in the world all of whose neighbours have their names ending in STAN. This is also the only country in Central Asia that borders all of the countries of this region

Uzbeks are the third populous Turkik ethnicity in the world after Turks and Azeris (leaving both in Azerbaijan and Iran)

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Famous Islamic physician Ibn Sina (Avicenna in the Latin world) who was born near Bukhara was the one of the first people to advocate using women’s hair as suture material – about 1400 years ago.

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If you have thought that some of the Islamic architecture in Uzbekistan resembles that from Northern India, then that is because Timur’s great great great Grandson, Babur Beg, was the founder of the Moghul Empire that ruled much of India for almost four centuries! Babur’s great great Grandson was Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal.

Uzbekistan was once a rum producig country. There is still a real arboretum in Denau (city near Termez on the border with Afghanistan), grown from a selection station that studied the prospects of plant growing in the unusual for the Soviet Union subtropical climate of Surkhandarya region: only here in the whole of the USSR sugar cane was grown and even rum was produced!

Uzbekistan has been ranked one of the safest countries in the world, according to a new global poll. The annual Gallup Global Law and Order asked if people felt safe walking at night and whether they had been victims of crime. The survey placed Uzbekistan 5th out of 135 countries, while the UK was 21st and the US 35th. Top five safest countries:

  • Singapore
  • Norway
  • Iceland
  • Finland
  • Uzbekistan
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