Between Minarets and Alleys
Everyday life on the streets of Bukhara and Samarkand — how faith, trade, and childhood coexist in narrow spaces against the backdrop of mosques, madrasas, and mausoleums.
In this series I follow everyday life on the streets of Bukhara and Samarkand, observing how faith, trade, and childhood coexist in the same narrow spaces. Children play football in dark alleyways, ride bicycles between parked cars, or pause by ancient walls that have watched generations grow up. Nearby, adults sweep courtyards, sell sweets, feed pigeons, or wait for customers at improvised stalls. The photographs show small, everyday gestures against monumental mosques, madrasas, and mausoleums.
What struck me was how naturally the sacred and the mundane intertwine. A wedding procession passes a political monument; boys kick a ball under a carved doorway; a woman cleans litter from stones polished by tourists and worshippers. Religion here is not illustrated by rituals alone — it shows in how people move, wait, talk, and work beside these spiritual landmarks. Instead of iconic postcard views, I stayed at ground level, where dust, plastic buckets, and drying laundry share the frame with blue tile and domes.
Throughout the series I return to children and street vendors as the main characters. They reveal a city that is both ancient and very young — rooted in tradition but shaped by informal economy and improvisation. Their faces are often half-turned or partly hidden — like fleeting street encounters and my position as a passing observer.
