Imagine waking to the sound of a train slowing down, pulling back the curtain of your cabin, and finding the desert outside has turned into a walled city with 400-year-old minarets. In late 2026, that becomes a real itinerary. Central Asia is getting its first true luxury train, and it is named after the city everyone comes for: the Samarkand Express.
For most of the twentieth century, the Silk Road cities of Uzbekistan were reached the hard way — overnight carriages, dust, patience. Then came the Afrosiyob bullet train. Now comes the other extreme: a hotel on rails, built to make the journey between Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva the best part of the holiday rather than the gap between the good parts.
The project is a partnership between O zbekiston Temir Yo llari, Uzbekistan national railway company, and Arsenale S.p.A., the Italian luxury hospitality group behind Europe revived grand tourist trains. The Samarkand Express will be Arsenale first rail project in Asia. In June 2026 the two sides signed documents moving the project from agreement into practical implementation, with the train targeted to enter service by the end of 2026.
Published specifications describe a formation of more than 13 carriages with over 38 cabins, hosting roughly 66 to 76 guests — small enough that the dining car feels like a private club, and the itinerary can be built around long, unhurried stops rather than tick-box photo halts.
The route runs through the four names that define Uzbekistan for most visitors: Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva.
The luxury train is arriving on top of an already transformed network. The Afrosiyob high-speed service links Tashkent to Samarkand in a little over two hours. And since May 2026 a new high-speed train, the Jaloliddin Manguberdi, connects Tashkent with Khiva in a single daytime run of roughly seven hours — a route that until recently meant a full night in a sleeper.
Put simply: a country that used to demand internal flights and long drives can now be crossed comfortably by rail, at three different price points — high-speed economy, first-class day trains, and from late 2026, a full luxury experience.
Uzbekistan welcomed 11.7 million foreign visitors in 2025, and the country Tourism Committee expects roughly 12 million in 2026. Entry is visa-free for citizens of more than 90 countries, including the EU, the UK, the Gulf states and, from 2026, the United States. English is increasingly spoken in the tourist cities, the food is one of the great undiscovered cuisines of Asia, and prices remain a fraction of what comparable heritage travel costs in Europe or the Middle East.
Luxury trains do something predictable to a destination: they raise its profile and its prices at the same time. The window where Uzbekistan is both world-class and uncrowded is measured in seasons, not decades.
A rail journey is a spine, not a whole trip. The itineraries our guests remember hang extra days off it: two nights in Bukhara so the trading domes and the Poi Kalyan ensemble can be walked twice, once at dawn and once lit at night; a night in a yurt camp beside Lake Aydarkul, where the sky does something no city sky does; a day in the Fergana Valley with the silk weavers and ceramicists who still work by hand; or Nukus, for the Savitsky collection of Soviet avant-garde art stranded in the desert.
Autumn is the moment. September and October bring dry days around 22 to 28°C, bazaars overflowing with melons, grapes and pomegranates, and light that makes the tilework look lit from inside.
GoUzbekistan is the tour-operator brand of Lochin Express Plyus LLC, operating in Uzbekistan since 2007. We hold tour-operator and domestic tourism licence No. 662280, issued 13 March 2025 by the Committee for Tourism Development of the Republic of Uzbekistan; Travelife certification is in progress. We also run a 500-capacity event venue, the 3-star Dendi Plaza Hotel with 29 rooms, and three catering brigades in Bukhara, and we work as a white-label ground operator for foreign tour operators and agencies.
That matters for a trip built around fixed departures: when a train time moves, someone local has to rebuild the day. We are that someone.
Want to be on the Silk Road when the new era of rail begins? Create your own custom tour and tell us your dates and travel style, or explore our tours for ready-made itineraries through Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Write to info@gouzbekistan.com or call +998 93 963-00-00.
رحلة فاخرة بالقطار عبر طريق الحرير: طشقند، سمرقند، بخارى وخيوة. الدخول إلى أوزبكستان بدون تأشيرة لمواطني أكثر من 90 دولة، والخريف هو أفضل موسم للزيارة. صمّم رحلتك الخاصة إلى أوزبكستان مع مشغّل سياحي مرخّص.
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Первый в Центральной Азии люксовый поезд свяжет Ташкент, Самарканд, Бухару и Хиву. Для граждан России въезд безвизовый, а осень — лучший сезон для путешествия по Шёлковому пути. Посмотреть наши туры в Узбекистан.
Uzbekistan Railways and Italy Arsenale are building the Samarkand Express, Central Asia first luxury train, linking Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva by late 2026. Here is why 2026 is the year Uzbekistan rail travel changed....
Read moreIn 1965 archaeologists in Samarkand uncovered a 7th-century mural of Chinese envoys arriving with silk. Today Chinese citizens can stand in front of it visa-free for 30 days — and Silk Road bookings are surging....
Read moreIn autumn the Silk Road becomes a table. Samarkand pours from a cellar founded in 1868, the bazaars fill with pomegranates and melons, and the heat finally breaks. This is the most delicious month of the Uzbek year....
Read moreIn a desert town nine hours west of Samarkand hangs the world's second-largest collection of Russian avant-garde art - thousands of canvases that were never meant to survive. Nukus is Uzbekistan's most astonishing detour, and autumn 2026 is the season to make it....
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