Kokand, Uzbekistan, Central Asia Travel
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Kokand is 228 km southeast of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, 115 km west of Andijan, and 88 km west of the city of Fergana. Kokand locates on the crossroads of the ancient trade ways, at the junction of two main routes into the Fergana Valley, one leading northwest over the mountains to Tashkent, and the other west through Khujand. As a result, Kokand is the main transportation junction in the Fergana Valley. Kokand is a center for the production of textiles, food, and chemicals.
Kokand exists since at least 10th century, when it was known as Khavakend and was located on a caravan route between India and China. Kokand was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century. The present city began as a fort in 1732 on the site of another older fortress called Eski-Kurgan. In 1740 it became the capital of an Uzbek khanate (a state ruled by khans) that reached as far as Qyzylorda to the west and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to the northeast. Kokand was the major religious center of the Fergana Valley under the khans. At one time it had more than 300 mosques. Russian imperial forces captured the city in 1876. The palace of Khudayar Khan (1871) sits in the center of the city.
More than 200 000 people live in Kokand. Over the last decade, new districts and public buildings appeared in the city with intense growth of individual houses, shops, cafes, restaurants and other private sector ventures.
