
Introduction
Fergana or Farghana (Uzbek: Fargona; Russian: Фергана) is a city (population: 214,000), the capital of Fergana Province in eastern Uzbekistan, at the southern edge of the Fergana Valley in southern Central Asia, cutting across the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Fergana is about 420 km east of Tashkent, and about 75 km west of Andijan.
Fergana, like most ancient Central Asian oasis, is situated on the Silk Roads (more precisely the North Silk Road), which connected the ancient Chinese capital of Xi’an to the west over the Wushao Ling Pass to Wuwei and emerging in Kashgar before linking to ancient Parthia.
Zoroastrian literature identifies the area as the Zoroastrian homeland.
Fergana also played a central role in the history of the Mughal dynasty of South Asia in that Omar Sheikh Mirza, chieftain of Farghana, was the father of Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (1483-1530), founder of the Mughal dynasty in India. At Mirza’s death in 1498, Babur became chief although he was still a minor.
Modern Fergana city was founded in 1876 as a garrison town and colonial appendage to Margelan (13.5 miles to the northwest) by the Russians.
It was initially named New Margelan, then renamed Skobelev in 1910 after the first Russian military governor of Fergana Valley.
In 1924, after the Bolshevik reconquest of the region in 1918–1920, the name was changed to Fergana, after the province of which it was the centre.
The Fergana canal was constructed in the 1930s.
Fergana’s wide, orderly tree-shaded avenues and attractive blue-washed 19th century tsarist colonial-style houses are said to mimic the appearance of pre-modern and pre-earthquake Tashkent.
There is a high proportion of Russian, Korean and Tatar inhabitants compared to other Fergana Valley cities. With Russian as the dominant language, the city has a distinctly different feel from most Uzbek cities. It retains an air of Soviet-era, pre-independence Uzbekistan.