MARGILAN, Fergana Valley: As he pulls freshly baked flatbreads from a massive, scorching hot tandoor, Marufxon Nematov prepares to repeat the same process dozens of times throughout the day, until the last customers arrive at the bakery to buy bread for dinner.
Some round, some flower-shaped with stamped centers and decorative patterns, the loaves are placed in a huge basket. From there, Nematov’s friend arranges them neatly on display, joining the rows of breads from other bakeries along Burhoniddin Marginaniy Street, a busy thoroughfare in Margilan, one of the main cities in Fergana Valley, eastern Uzbekistan.
Every day, they bake 2,000 loaves of non — a circular flatbread with a thin, decorated center and puffy edges — following a routine Nematov has kept for the past 55 years.
“I started working as a baker when I was 10 years old. I’ve learnt the whole process from making the dough to the form and baking,” he said.
“I’ve been doing this since a very young age, and thanks to it I’ve been able to feed my family. This work means a lot to me.”
In Uzbekistan, bread is a staple food, eaten for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. Across the country, dozens of varieties are baked, with each of the 12 provinces adding its own flavor, pattern and signature to centuries-old recipes.
Breads from the Fergana Valley are often dense and hearty, sometimes topped with green onions and decorated with floral or sunburst patterns. In Tashkent, loaves are round and thick, with soft, fluffy interiors, while in Bukhara and Khiva they may be layered or specially embellished for celebrations.
Sometimes bakers who developed their own designs would even stamp their phone numbers on the bread as a personal signature.
In Samarkand, about 600 km from Nematov’s bread shop in Margilan, master baker Gulchera follows a similar practice. But she bakes different kinds of bread, including the famous Samarkand non, which is lighter and airier, with a crisp exterior, marked only with a chekich — a wooden stamp that creates a sunburst pattern and helps the bread bake evenly.
Assisted by her son and granddaughter, she starts work at 4 a.m. before others go to the morning market and start preparing breakfast.
“I like it. I like everything about it. It makes me happy knowing that people will eat this bread,” she said. “We take orders and people come, and knowing that they like my bread, it just makes my day.”
Bread holds a special position in Uzbek culture and is always handled with care. It should not be placed upside down and it is meant to be torn by hand — never cut with a knife — and shared with others.
If an Uzbek notices a crumb on the ground, he or she will gently pick it up, kiss it three times, touch it to their forehead, and place it on a clean surface. Even if they do not consume it, they would treat it with sufficient respect.
While there are many reasons for the special position bread holds in Uzbekistan, including the famines experienced during Soviet rule, this reverence is also connected to Islam.
Prof. Marianne Kamp, a social historian of modern Central Asia at Indiana University, links it to the cultural tradition of the region, which was once a center of Muslim theological, spiritual, and philosophical thought.
“In times that long preceded Russian conquest of Central Asia, there were spiritual tracts (risala) for people who practiced all sorts of trade and craft, from farming to ironworking. One such risala discusses the production of bread — from when wheat is planted, to how it is grown and harvested, milling, making dough, baking,” she told Arab News.
“The risala describes the prayers that should be said and other actions that should be taken along this production route so that the bread would be halal. Thus, it may be a particular aspect of Islamic everyday practice that makes bread special.”
In everyday life, this sense is reinforced by continuity and belonging. The way bread has been baked in Uzbekistan has remained unchanged for generations.
Kimmathon Lazizova, a homemaker from Rishtan in the Fergana Valley, fondly recalled how, as a child, she and her siblings would wait for their mother to take the non out of the tandoor.
“It was so hot, burning our hands. We would pour water or tea into a little cup and dip the hot bread into it and eat. That was the most delicious of all breads,” she said.
That tandoor bread, the simplest non, always has four ingredients: flour, water, salt, and yeast.
“This is how bread was always baked. Our grandmothers, great-grandmothers, they always did it this way. This is how it was long ago, even before the Soviet Union,” Lazizova said. “It has come down to us from ancient times, and we’ll continue to carry it forward.”
