Why are so many Chinese travellers heading to Bukhara? Since the China–Uzbekistan mutual visa exemption took effect on 1 June 2025, Chinese arrivals have multiplied: 318,500 Chinese tourists visited Uzbekistan between January and August 2026, and Bukhara — a Silk Road city that still lives inside its old walls — is one of the first places they go.
Picture the hour before sunset in Bukhara's old town. The heat has gone out of the brick, the trading domes fill with voices, and a family who flew in from Harbin is turning painted cups and plates over in their hands at a roadside stall, tracing patterns so fine they look stitched rather than painted. That scene is not imagined: it was reported by Xinhua from Bukhara on 6 October 2026, in a story with a headline that every shopkeeper in the old town would recognise — all of Bukhara knows China is on holiday.
A local seller of miniature paintings and handicrafts told the Xinhua reporters that the whole city now knows about China's seven-day October holiday, and that during last year's National Day week Chinese visitors all but filled his small courtyard. For a city that grew rich on caravans from the East, it feels less like a new trend than an old road reopening.
The figures behind the story are striking. According to Uzbekistan's statistics data reported by China News Service on 15 September 2026:
Xinhua, citing data from Uzbekistan's Tourism Committee, adds that after the visa-free regime began, the number of Chinese visitors rose to 3.5 times its previous level. Chinese citizens can now enter Uzbekistan without a visa for stays of up to 30 days — enough time for Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva in one unhurried journey.
What draws people to Bukhara is not one monument but a whole city you can walk. The Po-i-Kalyan ensemble, with its great minaret rising over the Kalyan Mosque, anchors the skyline. Around it, covered trading domes still sell carpets, knives, suzani embroidery and painted ceramics, much as merchants once traded silk, paper and spices along this same route. At Lyab-i-Hauz, locals gather by the pool in the evening, and in quiet side lanes the workshops of miniature painters and potters are open to anyone who stops to watch.
For many visitors from China, Bukhara carries a sense of recognition — the Xinhua report quoted one traveller saying that Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva were cities she had first met in books. Here the Silk Road is not a museum label; it is the shopkeeper who pours you tea while you decide.
October's National Day holiday is the busiest moment of the year for Chinese travel to Bukhara. Once the holiday rush passes, the old town becomes calmer, and late autumn is a comfortable season for long walks between the domes, madrasas and caravanserais. If you could not travel during Golden Week, the coming weeks are an ideal time to see Bukhara with more space and a slower rhythm.
Where to stay: inside the historic area, Ayvan Plaza puts you within walking distance of the trading domes, while Dendi Plaza Hotel is a comfortable 3-star base run by our own team in Bukhara.
GoUzbekistan is a licensed tour operator with offices in Tashkent and Bukhara, operating since 2007. Browse our historical and cultural tours, explore our tours, or create your own custom tour — and let Bukhara's courtyards welcome you the way they have welcomed travellers from the East for centuries.
Phone / WhatsApp: +998 93 963-00-00 · Email: info@gouzbekistan.com
بخارى مدينة حيّة على طريق الحرير، تمتلئ أزقتها بالحرفيين والقباب التجارية القديمة والساحات الهادئة. خطّط لرحلتك إلى سمرقند وبخارى مع GoUzbekistan، شركة سياحية مرخّصة لها مكاتب في طشقند وبخارى. صمّم رحلتك الآن
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