All activities / Craft Skills (Bladesmithing, Pottery, Glass) / Margilan
Craft Skills (Bladesmithing, Pottery, Glass) in Margilan
The historic silk town of the Fergana Valley, home of Uzbekistan's hand-woven khan-atlas and adras ikat cloth, where workshops keep the full manual cycle from silkworm to loom and welcome visitors to watch and try the craft.
Why here
Margilan has been the silk town of the Fergana Valley since the Silk Road ran through it, and it is still where Uzbekistan's famous khan-atlas and adras cloth is made. The signature is ikat, a resist-dyeing method in which the pattern is tied and dyed into the threads before a single row is woven, giving the blurred, flame-like designs that define Uzbek silk. Unlike the machine mills elsewhere, Margilan's workshops keep the whole process by hand, from feeding silkworms on mulberry leaves to reeling, natural dyeing and weaving on wooden looms. Visitors can follow every stage, sit in on a weaving or dyeing session, and see why atlas and adras are protected as living heritage. It pairs naturally with the Rishtan potteries in a single Fergana loop.
Best months
The workshops run year round and the work is indoors, so the visiting season is long. Spring and autumn, roughly April to June and September to October, are the most comfortable months in the Fergana Valley. At the Yodgorlik factory it is worth arriving early, around eight to nine in the morning, to catch every stage of production active on the same visit. Short weaving or dyeing sessions are arranged in advance.
Getting there & around
Margilan sits beside Fergana city in the east of the country, reached from Tashkent by road over the Kamchik Pass in about five hours, or as a short hop from Kokand. The Yodgorlik factory and the crafts centre are both in town and open daily, easy to combine on foot or by taxi. Many travellers pair Margilan's silk with the Rishtan ceramics workshops on one Fergana Valley circuit.
Skill levels: beginner, intermediate
Schools & guides (2)
Margilan Crafts Development Centre
OrganizerThe Margilan Crafts Development Centre was founded in 2007 in the restored Said Ahmad Khoja madrasah, set up with the UNESCO Tashkent office and the regional government to safeguard the natural-dye making of atlas and adras silk. In 2017 its work entered the UNESCO Register of Good Practices for intangible heritage. The centre gathers weavers and dyers under one roof, runs demonstrations and short workshops in ikat weaving and natural dyeing, and sells the cloth its masters produce.
Yodgorlik Silk Factory
OrganizerThe Yodgorlik silk factory in Margilan, at 138 Zahiriddin Street, is the best known workshop keeping the full hand cycle of khan-atlas silk alive. Founded in 1972 and privatised in 2000, it still boils the cocoons, reels and dyes the thread, and weaves ikat by hand on wooden looms rather than by machine. Visitors can tour every stage from the mulberry-fed silkworms to the finished cloth, see the on-site silk museum and buy direct. It is open daily and is the anchor of any Margilan visit.