The High-Speed Train That Stopped at a 2,500-Year-Old City — The Silk Road Is Changing
The Jaloliddin Manguberdi high-speed train, built by South Korea's Hyundai Rotem, entered commercial service on the Tashkent–Khiva route in May 2026, cutting travel time from roughly 14 hours to 7 hours 30 minutes and linking Samarkand and Bukhara along the way. According to IntelliNews, this marks the first time a Korean-built high-speed train has gone into commercial service overseas, under a contract worth 270 billion won covering six trainsets and maintenance packages. Uzbekistan's Tourism Committee reported 9.1 million foreign visits in January–August 2026, up 21.1% year-on-year, but stat.uz Q1 data shows 76.7% of "tourism-purpose" arrivals came from three neighboring countries, and the 2025 purpose breakdown puts travel-purpose visits at roughly 15% of total — a material gap between the headline and the underlying reality. At six runs per week with 389 seats, the train's annual capacity works out to about 121,000 seats by my math — roughly 1.3% of the 9.1 million figure — which undercuts both the "tourism boom" narrative and the "next Kyoto" overcrowding fear simultaneously. With National Geographic naming Khiva one of its Best of the World picks for 2026, and a $242 million Urgench Airport expansion projected for late 2028, the real variables shaping this city's future are the additional trainset deliveries scheduled through September 2027 and whether that airport expansion stays on schedule.