The train leaves Tashkent at seven in the morning, and by the time the second cup of tea arrives the city has dissolved into cotton fields and low blue hills. Seven and a half hours later you step down onto a platform in Khiva — a walled desert city of mud-brick minarets that, until this year, took a full night in a sleeper berth to reach.
Uzbekistan's Silk Road has always been a route. In 2026 it finally became a railway.
In May 2026 Uzbekistan Railways put the Jaloliddin Manguberdi into service — a 250 km/h high-speed train built by Hyundai Rotem, running directly from Tashkent through Samarkand and Bukhara to Khiva. What used to be an overnight journey of roughly fourteen hours is now a single daytime run of about seven and a half. The train carries Economy and VIP class, and it runs three days a week in each direction.
For anyone planning a Usbekistan Reise — and particularly for German-speaking travellers, who tend to plan a Silk Road circuit as one continuous overland journey rather than a series of flights — this is the single most useful thing that has happened to the country's infrastructure in a decade. The four great cities of the Uzbek Silk Road now sit on one line, in daylight, with the Kyzylkum Desert scrolling past the window instead of passing invisibly in the dark.
The new train joins a service that already worked beautifully. The Afrosiyob — a Spanish-built Talgo 250, in service since 2012 and extended to Bukhara in 2016 — covers Tashkent to Samarkand in about two and a half hours at 250 km/h, with Economy, Business and VIP classes and a restaurant car. Travellers regularly describe it as cleaner and more comfortable than trains they have taken in Western Europe.
The practical consequence for a Seidenstraße Rundreise is that you no longer have to choose between comfort and coverage. Tashkent in the morning, the Registan by late afternoon. Two nights in Samarkand, a two-hour hop to Bukhara, and the walls of Khiva by the end of the same week — without a single internal flight, without a single long minibus transfer across the desert.
One warning, and it is a real one: the fast trains sell out. Booking opens sixty days ahead, and the high-speed services — the Jaloliddin Manguberdi especially — are frequently full within days, largely because tour operators block-book them. A Uzbekistan rail itinerary that is not reserved two months out is not an itinerary; it is a hope.
The trains are arriving at exactly the moment the market has turned. Between January and August 2026 Uzbekistan received 9.1 million international visitors — an increase of 21.1% over the same period last year. Arrivals from Germany rose by roughly 25%, with France and the United Kingdom both up around 21%.
There are three reasons, and they compound. Visa-free entry now applies to citizens of more than ninety countries, Germany, Austria and Switzerland among them — you land, you are stamped in, you go. Autumn weather in Uzbekistan sits between 22°C and 28°C with the summer humidity gone, which is close to perfect for walking through madrasas all day. And the country remains, for now, remarkably inexpensive for the quality of what you see.
That last point is the one with an expiry date. Uzbekistan is currently among the fastest-rising destinations in Central Asia, and the phrase experienced travellers keep using about it is go before everyone else does.
A rail-led Silk Road trip has its own logic. The Jaloliddin Manguberdi runs only three days a week, so the whole journey has to be built backwards from that departure. Khiva's station sits about 1.5 km from the walled old town of Itchan Kala; Bukhara's main station is twelve kilometres from the historic centre; Samarkand's is six kilometres from the Registan. Stations require a ticket and often a passport simply to enter, and there is a security check before boarding. None of this is difficult — but all of it needs to be planned by someone who has done it before.
That is the work we do. GoUzbekistan has operated in this country since 2007, from our base in Bukhara, and we hold tour-operator licence No. 662280 from the Committee for Tourism Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan. We book the trains the moment reservations open, we meet you on the platform at the right station, and we build the days between the journeys — the ateliers, the plov cauldrons, the caravanserais that no timetable lists.
Autumn 2026 is the season. The trains are running, the light is gold on the tiles, and the pomegranates are in the bazaars.
Create your own custom tour — tell us your dates and we will build the rail itinerary around them. Or explore our tours to see what a week on the Silk Road looks like.
Die Seidenstraße Rundreise ist jetzt eine Bahnreise: Taschkent, Samarkand, Buchara und Chiwa liegen auf einer Hochgeschwindigkeitsstrecke. Usbekistan ist für deutsche, österreichische und Schweizer Staatsbürger visumfrei, und der Herbst bringt angenehme 22–28 °C. Planen Sie jetzt Ihre individuelle Usbekistan Rundreise.
أصبح طريق الحرير رحلة بالقطار السريع: طشقند وسمرقند وبخارى وخيوة على خط واحد. الخريف هو أفضل موسم للسفر إلى أوزبكستان، بطقس معتدل ومآذن من الفيروز الأزرق. اكتشف جولاتنا في أوزبكستان أو صمّم رحلتك الخاصة.
La Ruta de la Seda ya se recorre en tren de alta velocidad: Taskent, Samarcanda, Bujará y Jiva en una sola línea. El otoño ofrece 22–28 °C, mercados llenos de granadas y una luz dorada sobre las cúpulas azules. Diseña tu viaje a medida a Uzbekistán.
La Route de la Soie se parcourt désormais en train à grande vitesse : Tachkent, Samarcande, Boukhara et Khiva sur une même ligne. L'automne est la meilleure saison, avec 22 à 28 °C et une lumière superbe sur les coupoles turquoise. Découvrez nos circuits en Ouzbékistan.
丝绸之路如今可以乘高铁畅游：塔什干、撒马尔罕、布哈拉与希瓦已连成一线。秋季气温22–28°C，是游览乌兹别克斯坦的最佳季节，蓝色穹顶在金色阳光下格外动人。立即定制您的乌兹别克斯坦之旅。
Шёлковый путь теперь проходит по высокоскоростной железной дороге: Ташкент, Самарканд, Бухара и Хива на одной линии. Осень — лучшее время для поездки: 22–28 °C, гранаты на базарах и золотой свет на бирюзовых куполах. Посмотрите наши туры по Узбекистану или составьте свой маршрут.
The average stay in Uzbekistan has doubled to eight days and spending has more than doubled since 2017. Here is where the extra days are going — and why autumn is the season to take them....
Read moreAt ten at night Bukhara empties, and the old town becomes what it was a thousand years ago. Stay inside the walls this autumn — and see the Silk Road with nobody else in it....
Read moreIn a village outside Samarkand, a water wheel still beats mulberry bark into paper — a craft that reached the Silk Road from China in 751 and never left. This autumn, Chinese travellers can see it visa-free....
Read moreIn 1437 a prince in Samarkand measured the length of the year and missed by less than a minute. His observatory is still cut into the hill above the city — and autumn is when its sky is clearest....
Read more
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