The creators of Sounds of Uzbekistan travelled to Margilan to present its sound portrait – from craft workshops to street melodies remembered from childhood. How does the ancient city sound today, what local dish is a must-try, and where can you watch the film? Find out in our story.

A team connected by music

Katerina Nepruk is a musician, bass guitarist and composer. Her journey began at the age of 12 and continued through conservatory, the Tashkent State College of Circus and Variety Arts, years on stage and experiments with sound.

Diyor Kamalov is an artist and musician, and a member of the duo OnBr, which works at the intersection of funk, reggae and Uzbek musical traditions. He started out in Moscow, took part in festivals, created his own band and organised jam sessions. In 2022, he returned to Uzbekistan, where he met Katerina.

Nikita Bakusov is a director, producer and editor. He has lived in Uzbekistan for almost four years, teaches at Tashkent Film School and runs a course on music video directing. He has worked with rock and jazz artists and created concert films and music videos.

Katerina: We had a wonderful cinematographer, Sergey Karyyev, with us. As soon as he heard about our idea, he got excited and came along without asking any unnecessary questions. He spent two days with us, filmed everything we needed and then returned home.

Anastasia Kravchenko also took part in the project as a production assistant. All the behind-the-scenes footage was her work, and these shots also became part of the film. Nastya organises musical events and intimate apartment concerts, so the atmosphere of the project was very close to her.

Our art director was Timur Chaldaev, an amazing graphic designer who created the entire visual style and visual code. He is also a musician – a bass guitarist with the bands Monno, Dzenpunk and Chyorny Kot.

If you look closely, everyone on the team is connected to music in one way or another. Some are performers, others work in event organisation. And I think that connection was one of the things that inspired us to set off on this journey.

About the project's goal

Nikita: Our goal is to create a sound map of Uzbekistan. Many people have never been to these cities or cannot afford to travel there. They can see them on YouTube through travel bloggers – often in beautifully filmed drone videos.

But the problem is that these films are primarily about visuals, and over time they start to look alike. We wanted to do something fundamentally different. Katya already had experience working with the soundscape of a city, and she suggested the idea of creating something like audio photographs – films devoted to the sounds of Uzbekistan's cities. Gradually, the idea grew into a full-fledged documentary project.

We currently plan to cover 12 cities, although there may be more. Our main focus is sound: how a city sounds, which musical traditions shape it, what songs people sing, how crafts “sound” – all the things we love and value about Uzbekistan but rarely think about from an auditory perspective.

I also want to emphasise that during the project we realised how important such a sound portrait could be for blind people. Our friend, the wonderful blind artist Julian Fusman, attended a private screening, and it was very important for us to hear his opinion. He appreciated this approach, so in the future we plan to create versions of the films adapted for people with visual impairments. We want to inspire those who cannot see a city but can hear it.

Diyor: More than a year ago, when Katya told me about the idea, I immediately became excited about it. To be honest, I myself did not have a clear understanding of how the music of one city differs from another or what sounds actually shape its character.

At first, we planned to limit ourselves to audio recordings, but gradually the idea developed into a full documentary film. That was when we decided to travel to Margilan and make our pilot episode there.

We want to show the diversity and character of Uzbekistan not only through its visual image, but also through sound and, honestly, to break the stereotype that Uzbekistan is only Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. The country is much larger and more diverse.

Cities can differ dramatically in both their music and the sounds of everyday life. Even skullcaps, as you know, are different in every region, as are ornaments, embroidery and elements of traditional clothing. We are interested in bringing all of this together and conveying it through sound and music so that the uniqueness of each place can be felt.

The process of creating the film

Diyor: I am originally from Fergana and grew up there. Margilan is about a 20–30-minute drive away, so we had more information about this city than about most others. I had the opportunity to go there in advance, do a small location scout, find out which locations would work for us and understand how best to structure the route. It was the perfect starting point.

Katerina: We travelled there by train. When we were buying tickets, there were no seats left on the high-speed train. Flying did not make much sense because we had instruments and equipment with us – taking them as carry-on luggage would have been difficult, while checking them in would not have been safe. In the end, we chose a regular train, and the journey took about six hours.

We drove back by car. It took roughly the same amount of time, but the route through the Kamchik Pass was incredibly beautiful. We stopped to look at the mountain landscapes, and that became part of the overall experience of the trip as well.

Nikita: Structure is important for any project. We absolutely did not want to end up in a situation where we arrived in a city and acted chaotically, like blind kittens. We had a clear understanding of what Margilan is known for, what makes it unique and how it differs from other cities in Uzbekistan.

For me, Uzbekistan is primarily about art, crafts and a rich musical culture: maqom, traditional instruments and performance traditions. So we structured our filming plan around craftspeople – specifically those who are characteristic of Margilan. It is, of course, a city of weavers, so visiting a weaving factory was essential.

The musical storyline was largely built around Music School No. 9, an incredibly interesting place with a long history. Yulduz Usmanova and many other famous artists studied there. Margilan also has a theatre where professional performers perform maqom, and we captured that as well.

We often met ordinary residents who were curious about what we were doing, and we asked them to remember and sing songs from their childhood. Music is also a connection between generations. The melodies sung by ordinary passers-by became part of the film too.

But the main feature is that this is not simply a collection of sounds. Everything we recorded was arranged and presented through the lens of a composer's talent. Katya took individual fragments and turned them into independent musical pieces, creating a new sound based on the city's living environment.

The city as a score

Katerina: The film is divided into several parts, and each one has its own protagonist. It is not always a person – more often, the protagonist is a sound created by the hands of a craftsperson or by a human voice. In some places, as Nikita mentioned, we hear the music school, where music already exists in its traditional form.

But when we filmed craftspeople, the music was built from individual sounds. For example, an elderly craftsman was making a karnay, a traditional wind instrument, and rhythmically working with a hammer. I recorded that sound and incorporated it into a musical composition.

The same thing happened at the weaving factory. As soon as we arrived, I heard the rhythm of the looms. It was so expressive that I immediately realised it could become a rave track. The music gradually began to develop around that rhythm.

The idea for the project actually grew out of my Instagram series called “A Melody from a Stranger”. I would approach people on the street, ask them to sing any melody and then create a new composition based on it. Something similar happened in Margilan: ordinary people – for example, an elderly man at the bazaar who offered us tea – would sing something they remembered, and these fragments became part of the musical fabric.

The film also contains an episode with pigeons. We filmed a location known as a “cemetery guarded by pigeons”. The sounds made by the birds became part of the composition and inspired me to create music that felt somewhat close to Bach's classical style. I played the harmonic foundation on bass guitar and performed the melodic line with a bow, also on bass.

I wanted to pass Margilan through the lens of contemporary music. I don't know what the sound of the other cities will be like – perhaps the genre will change. But in Margilan, I felt that it should be a mix of electronic music and live sounds. And it is not only about electronics – it is a full-fledged compositional process involving different instruments and technical elements.

Diyor: We invited a very diverse group of people to the private screening. Among them was someone who professionally studies maqom, as well as a woman who had listened to this music all her life. Their reactions were especially important to us.

They talked about reinterpretation – about hearing melodies they had known since childhood in a new way. If you are familiar with maqom, you know that to an unprepared listener it can seem quite monotonous.

In the film, however, new shades and a new context appear. Because of the way Katya builds a musical environment around these melodies and voices, they take on a completely different meaning. It is a fresh and, in my opinion, very interesting perspective on the tradition.

Nikita: We wanted to expand the audience for maqom. For many people, this music in its traditional form can be difficult to perceive, especially for those who did not grow up with it. I wanted viewers who had never heard this music and do not live in Uzbekistan to watch the film and discover the tradition through the lens of contemporary electronic music. I think we succeeded.

A magical place

Nikita: What I remember most about Margilan is the incredible hospitality of its people. People constantly tried to impress us, invited us for tea and wanted to offer us something to eat. The director of the music school even said, “You can't work all the time, guys. You need to relax too.” I was struck by how sincerely people were interested in what we were doing and how quickly they became involved in the process. We did not expect such a warm welcome.

I especially remember one moment at the music school. We came simply to film, talk to the director and record a few performers, but we were greeted by an orchestra of traditional instruments. It was incredible!

At some point, it felt as though the film was making itself. The people and the city itself became full-fledged characters. For me, Margilan will always remain an incredibly welcoming place where magical coincidences kept happening and everything seemed to fall into place on its own.

During this trip, I tried nohat-shurpa for the first time. There is a famous place in the city, which we also filmed, where they prepare traditional dishes that are very hearty and rich. Over dinner, Diyor told me that we absolutely had to try it.

I called it “the death of a vegetarian”: it was a huge, aromatic meat dish, so rich that after just a few spoonfuls I already felt completely full. It was fantastic – a truly memorable gastronomic experience.

Margilan also seemed very spiritual to me. There is a scene in the film shot at the Kaptarli Mozor mausoleum complex, a place seemingly guarded by pigeons, which Katya has already mentioned. There are many such places here, and you can see that people live as sincere believers. For them, it is not simply a tradition, but something much deeper.

Diyor: The city has, of course, changed a lot. Locals say that industrialisation has taken place here in recent years, and there are more cars and more movement. But the essence of Margilan remains the same – it is a city of craftspeople, people who get up early and work hard.

And it is also a centre of entrepreneurship. In Fergana, there is even a humorous saying that you need to be careful when dealing with people from Margilan – they are simply too enterprising. But in my opinion, that business instinct is exactly what shapes the city's distinctive character.

Where and when?

Nikita: We held a private screening at the Kinoxona cinema at Tashkent Film School. It was important for us to present the film on a big screen with good sound and hear the audience's reaction in the cinema. The screening went very warmly, and we received valuable feedback.

We are planning to hold a screening in Margilan itself, where the filming took place. Oibek Madaliev, the director of Music School No. 9 who appears in the film, is celebrating the 100th anniversary of his great-grandfather, a famous maqom musician and singer, this year. We would like to organise the screening to coincide with this date.

For now, the film is being shown at special screenings and has not been released on online platforms. We plan to create a full series of documentary works that we would also like to present at festivals.

You can follow announcements about public screenings on our social media, primarily Instagram and YouTube. We will publish information there about upcoming screenings in cinemas and screening rooms.

At the moment, viewers have a rare opportunity to see the film in the format in which it was conceived – on a big screen and with high-quality sound.

Katerina: As for the musical compositions, we have already decided that once we visit all 12 cities and all 12 viloyats, we will release a full-length album. At the same time, the material recorded in Margilan turned out to be very strong and quite cohesive, so we are planning a separate release.

I hope it will be released on the NeoForMusic label in March.

After the release, the music will be available on all major streaming platforms – Spotify, Yandex Music, Apple Music and others.