Some things don’t change. The Samanid mausoleum, for example, built in the 10th century CE or so, looks exactly as it did every previous time that I’ve been to Bukhara. I just made it sound as thought I’ve been to Bukhara often. One visit in 1991, two in 1992-1993, and again in 2003. Things in the old city have changed massively since 2003: the tourist-oriented infrastructure has improved to an impressive degree, and everything in the old city is restored to a degree that it makes walking around pleasant and easy.
We stayed in the Grand Nodirbek hotel, which is made up of a number of old houses in the Jewish neighborhood by Lab-i Hovuz, joined together. With a spacious and shaded courtyard and second floor veranda, it was a comfortable, beautiful place to stay.
That photo was an interior room in the Hotel, an old guest room from when this was a residence. The niches and much of the ganch (carved plaster) remains, and of course it is now a shop. Everything in Bukhara is a site for small business. This was a women’s business: suzani embroideries and other textile goods for the tourist market.
Fortunately for these many, many small business owners in Bukhara, tourist numbers seem to be strong, with plenty of European travelers as well as internal tourists from elsewhere in Uzbekistan. Handcraft skills are in evidence everywhere.