The general evolution of oriental dress inevitably affected Uzbek national dress, though some of its distinctive and unique features have been preserved. Of course, modern caftan looks quite different from what it was, say, a hundred years ago. In the West the word caftan has been known since the Mongolian invasion and was borrowed by several languages.

The traditional shirt kuilak was the everyday men’s wear. First its length went beyond the knees, later it was shortened to reach only the middle of the thigh. This shirt had two types of collar: one was sewn to the edge of a vertical cut; the other was the border of just a horizontal shoulder-level cut. The male residents of Tashkent and Ferghana regions wore the loose kimono-like shirt yakhtak. It was made from cotton fabric and was worn by both the young and the elderly. Sometimes the collar was bordered by a decorative tape jiyak. Continuation >>>

Over many centuries two vast regions of Asian continent – China and India have been seeking after mutually beneficial trade relations. The great mountainous system of Hindukush, which latitudinally stretches from India for almost 800 kilometres, the Tibetan Upland in south-western part of China, which is surrounded by the mountain systems of the Himalayas and the Karakorum, upland plains and the Tien-Shan mountains in the western and north-western parts of the country, all these impeded the realization of the dream to construct convenient and short cut transport communications. Only trade caravans, keeping the beaten, by-pass tracks of the Great Silk Road, negotiated wearisome deserts and steppes.
At present the problem of constructing reliable transport thoroughfares between the two great countries still remains topical. As world economy develops, especially with regard to high rate of economic growth in the countries of South-East Asia, the necessity of revival of ancient overland trade routes on an up-to-date level becomes more and more obvious. By now, there have been built three new highways from China to India.

The first of them - the Karakorum Highway (KKH), built by China in the '60s-80s of the 20th century, joins the country's transport network in the north. The road construction was carried out through an extremely difficult location: narrow mountain corridors and snow-covered mountain passes. The most arduous section was located at the height of 4890 metres above sea level. Twenty-five thousand engineers and workers participated in the realization of the project. China invested more than 3 billion US dollars into the construction of the highway. Intended for all-weather transport operations, this highway is however closed during winter months, due to snow slides on the mountain passes. This world's highest paved international road connected Western China with the capital of Pakistan – city of Islamabad, as well as with the largest Pakistani port on the Indian Ocean coast – city of Karachi. Continuation >>>