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Panjshanbe Bazaar
A vast pastel-fronted covered market — the name means Thursday, though it runs every day. The country''s best food shopping by a distance.
The largest covered bazaar in Tajikistan, and still the city''s real centre.
Tajikistan · Destination guide
Alexander's furthest city, on the road to Fergana
Khujand sits at the mouth of the Fergana Valley — a 2,500-year-old Silk Road city founded by Alexander, and the natural land link between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Quick facts
Alexander the Great founded Alexandria Eschate — "Alexandria the Furthest" — here in 329 BC, at the point where his empire stopped. The city has been continuously inhabited since, which in this region is unusual: most of its contemporaries are archaeological sites.
What survives is not monumental. The fortress is largely reconstruction, and the Soviet century left its mark on the street plan. What Khujand has instead is Panjshanbe, the largest covered bazaar in Tajikistan, and a position: it sits at the mouth of the Fergana Valley, three or four hours by road from Tashkent, which makes it the natural crossing point on a combined Uzbekistan–Tajikistan route.
Highlights
A vast pastel-fronted covered market — the name means Thursday, though it runs every day. The country''s best food shopping by a distance.
The largest covered bazaar in Tajikistan, and still the city''s real centre.
Reconstructed walls on the ancient citadel mound, with a local history museum inside.
The site Alexander fortified, continuously occupied for 2,500 years.
A mausoleum, mosque and minaret facing the bazaar, rebuilt across several centuries.
The city''s spiritual centre, sitting directly against its commercial one.