Akbar House Collection — Attraction in Bukhara City

Coming here is one reason why I joined a friend on a last minute trip to Uzbekistan. I read about the Akbar House in magazines. The store is wonderful and the house, if you arrange a tour, is lovely too. It has the owner’s private collection in a beautifully maintained 19th century home that belonged to a Jewish tailor. It’s clear he loves textiles.

His sister gave us a great tour and we all delighted in the details of the house. But when we returned, the owner was mad that we took “two hours” and the sister told him we took photos, which made him even madder. She didn’t tell us not to on the tour, and he tried to charge us $25 each! That’s giving scam. Just charge more for the amazing tour! It’s worth it! They made us delete our photos. We should have just walked away lol.

He also seemed upset we weren’t immediately ready to buy, but unfortunately for him, we really did mean we will be back when we said it. We had just arrived to Bukhara and this was our first stop.

Really lovely pieces for sale. The owner’s sister was seemingly sweet and knowledgeable. Way to end on a sour note, though. I love textiles and was eager to buy a really nice piece for my own collection.

Designs by Miriam is nearby and his mother was...

Beautiful embroidery. But very cheaply made which doesn’t justify the prices. Luxury is all about the details and it’s sorely missing here. Most of what’s being sold as “Uzbek” actually has Persian roots. Suzani? Persian. Ikat? Indonesian word. Ikat also independently developed in Southeast Asia. The word for it in this part of the world is abr. Persian/Farsi for cloud. The embroidery patterns? Persian. For a modern and truly luxurious take regardless of where these things originally came from, we found a great store by the Kalon Tower. Ended up with beautifully made pieces from...

Beautiful but overpriced suzani and incredibly rude owner. I was looking at some pieces and his sister was helping me as she speaks better English. Akbar kept muttering about tourists and shouting buy this one, cheap cheap cheap. I left but returned next morning. I agreed to buy 3 cushion covers at a slightly reduced price in USD from the sister. She told me how much this would be in Som and i went to get it from the ATM. Later i discovered she used a bad exchange rate so i ended up paying full price. There are many suzani shops in Bukhara. Go...