https://travel-to-uzbekistan.blogspot.com/2011/10/short-history-of-uzbekistan-and-culture.html
Short History Of Uzbekistan and Culture
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The territory of modern-day Uzbekistan and its close neighbours have seen many empires rise and fall. The Sogdians, the Macedonians, the Huns, the Mongolians, the Seljuks, the Timurids and the Khanates of Samarkand, Bukhara Khiva and Khorezm all held sway here at one time or another.
Central Asia really came of age with the development of the Silk Road from China to the West. Samarkand and Bukhara lay astride this, the most valuable trading route of its day. The riches that it brought were used to build fabulous mosques and madrassars, most of which were destroyed by the Mongol hordes in the 13th century. Much of the damage was repaired and new cities were built by Timur the Lame in the 14th century. Timur conquered all before him and, at its height, his empire stretched from Moscow and Baghdad and as far west as Ankara in Turkey.
After his death, his empire crumbled and Central Asia was split into warring Khanates. The Russians had had their eyes on the lands over their southern border since Peter the Great sent his first military mission to Khiva in 1717. It was to be another 150 years before they started to make any considerable headway.
In 1865, General Kaufmann took Tashkent and signed agreements with the Khans. The Bolsheviks were resisted in Central Asia by bands known as Basmachi until the 1930s but these were finally suppressed and Moscow took control.
The history of Central Asia under Soviet rule is one of exploitation. Uzbekistan was turned into a cotton monoculture and most of the product was processed north of the Urals, in Russia and Ukraine.
Uzbekistan has been governed since 1989 by Islam Karimov when he took over as head of the Uzbek Communist party (now the People's Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, PDPU). Uzbekistan assumed independence in 1991 upon the break up of the Soviet Union. The PRPU, with Karimov at its head, has held power continuously ever since. It has taken an uncompromising line against all opposition, resulting in a dreadful human rights record.
