Uzbekistan: Xiva (Khiva)

This is my first postcard from Uzbekistan!

Khiva is a city of approximately 50,000 people located in Xorazm Region, Uzbekistan. Itchan Kala (on postcard) in Khiva was the first site in Uzbekistan to be inscribed in the World Heritage List (1991).

In the early part of its history, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian stock and spoke an Eastern Iranian language called Khwarezmian. Subsequently the Iranian ruling class was replaced by Turks in the 10th century A.D, and the region gradually turned into an area with a majority of Turkic speakers.

The city of Khiva was first recorded by Muslim travellers in the 10th century, although archaeologists assert that the city has existed since the 6th century. By the early 17th century, Khiva had become the capital of the Khanate of Khiva, ruled by a branch of the Astrakhans, a Genghisid dynasty.

In 1873, Russian General Konstantin von Kaufman launched an attack on the city, which fell on 28 May 1873. Although the Russian Empire now controlled the Khanate, it nominally allowed Khiva to remain as a quasi-independent protectorate.

Following the Bolshevik seizure of power after the October Revolution, a short lived Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was created out of the territory of the old Khanate of Khiva, before its incorporation into the USSR in 1924, with the city of Khiva becoming part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic.

Stamps are definitives, monument Berbaq, issued on 05.04.2012. and on 06.11.2014.


Thank you very much Elena!