Uzbekistan tours from Russia: flights from Moscow and other cities, entry and money
Places in this article: Samarkand · Bukhara · Khiva · Tashkent
Uzbekistan Airways flight HY 606 leaves Moscow Vnukovo at one in the morning and lands in Samarkand at seven. Four hours in the air, two hours of time difference, and by breakfast you can be walking to the Did you know? The Registan's sun-carrying lion went on a banknote The Sher-Dor Madrasah (1619–1636) is named for the big cats with the sun on their backs on its portal. The image appeared on the reverse of Uzbekistan's 200-som note of 1997. Read more →. From Russia, Uzbekistan is a short nonstop flight from a dozen cities, with no Entry rules depend on your passport. Once you are here, each stay must be registered within three days, and hotels do it for you; customs and registration rules are in our guide. Read more → and a language many people here understand. We are a tour operator in Tashkent, and this is how a trip from Russia works in 2026: flights, entry, money and the kind of tour that fits.
Nonstop flights from Moscow and other Russian cities
Most flights land in Tashkent, but Moscow also has direct flights to Samarkand, Bukhara and Urgench, the airport for Khiva. That lets you start the tour in the city you care about most and fly home from Tashkent. The table shows the November 2026 timetable; the flight times are those of Uzbekistan Airways.
| From | To | Flight time | Airlines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moscow | Tashkent | 3 h 50 min | Uzbekistan Airways (from Domodedovo and Vnukovo, several flights a day), Aeroflot, Centrum Air, Qanot Sharq, Ural Airlines, Pobeda, Utair |
| Moscow | Samarkand | 4 h | Uzbekistan Airways (from Vnukovo, six times a week), Aeroflot, Centrum Air, Qanot Sharq, Ural Airlines, Pobeda, Utair |
| Moscow | Bukhara | 3 h 55 min | Uzbekistan Airways (from Vnukovo, daily), Aeroflot, Qanot Sharq, Utair |
| Moscow | Urgench (Khiva) | 3 h 35 min | Uzbekistan Airways (from Vnukovo, daily), Centrum Air, S7, Ural Airlines, Azimuth, Nordstar |
| St Petersburg | Tashkent | 4 h 50 min | Uzbekistan Airways (daily), Centrum Air, Qanot Sharq, Rossiya |
| Kazan | Tashkent | 3 h | Uzbekistan Airways (four times a week), Centrum Air, Nordwind |
| Novosibirsk | Tashkent | 3 h | Uzbekistan Airways (twice a week), S7, Centrum Air |
| Yekaterinburg | Tashkent | 2 h 50 min | Uzbekistan Airways (twice a week), Ural Airlines, Centrum Air |
From St Petersburg, Uzbekistan Airways also flies straight to Samarkand, Bukhara and Urgench a few times a week, and from Kazan to Samarkand once a week. Ufa, Krasnoyarsk and Sochi each have two Uzbekistan Airways flights a week to Tashkent, 2 h 50 min to 3 h 50 min in the air.
Timetables change with the season, so check the days of operation for your dates before you buy. A flight into Samarkand and out of Tashkent is often the most convenient pair: you travel the country in one direction and never double back. More on airports and connections is in our guide to flights to Uzbekistan.
Clocks: Tashkent is on UTC+5 all year. That is two hours ahead of Moscow, St Petersburg and Kazan, the same time as Yekaterinburg and Ufa, and two hours behind Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk.
Entry: no visa, but take your international passport
Russian citizens do not need a visa for Uzbekistan. You enter with a valid international passport (zagranpasport), and children of any age need their own. The internal Russian passport is not accepted for entry, so check the dates on the international one before you buy tickets.
Russian citizens are exempt from registration for the first 15 days after entry. If you stay longer, you must register no later than day 15. On a tour you will hardly notice any of this: hotels register guests at check-in, so the paperwork stays with them. Keep the confirmations until you fly home. Customs rules and what to keep for departure are in our article on registration and customs; visa rules for other passports, if someone in your group holds one, are in our visa guide.
Money: bring dollars, not a Russian card
This is the one thing to sort out before you leave. Cards issued by Russian banks, Mir included, are not serviced in Uzbekistan: they do not work in local card terminals or ATMs. Bring cash for the whole trip.
US dollars are the easiest currency to carry. Every bank and exchange office changes them, from Tashkent airport, where exchange offices work around the clock, to Khiva. Some banks in Tashkent and other large cities also change roubles, but not everywhere and the rate depends on the bank, so we do not advise making roubles your main currency. Change money only at banks, exchange offices and bank machines, and take your passport. Details are in our article on where to exchange currency.
If you hold a Visa or Mastercard issued by a bank outside Russia, it will work almost everywhere: hotels, restaurants, shops and railway stations. How we split card and cash on our own trips is in cards, cash and tipping.
Language and getting around
Uzbek is the state language, and Russian has no official status, but it is widely used between people of different nationalities, most of all in Tashkent. In the capital you will be understood in Russian at hotels, restaurants and in taxis; in small towns and villages you will hear it less. Our tours run in Russian, so the language is never a barrier on the trip itself. More in our article on the languages of Uzbekistan.
Between the cities you travel by fast train. The Uzbekistan's high-speed train: Tashkent to Samarkand in 2 hours 30 minutes, Tashkent to Bukhara in about 4 hours. Tickets are tied to your passport. Read more → takes 2 h 30 min from Tashkent to Samarkand and about 4 hours to Bukhara, and the high-speed train to Khiva leaves Tashkent at 07:00 every day except Sunday. How to book is in our guide to trains in Uzbekistan.
Which trip fits
You buy the flight from your own city, and we handle everything on the ground: hotels, train tickets, guides and transfers. Tell us your flight times and we build the programme around them. Four formats work especially well from Russia.
The classic week. Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva in eight days is our 8-day classic tour. If you prefer a group, there is an 8-day group tour of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. How we lay out such a week is in Uzbekistan in 7 days.
A long weekend. With the night flight into Samarkand you lose no daylight. Our 4-day Samarkand group tour fits a long weekend, and from Tashkent you can add Bukhara in 2 days by night train.
New Year. Winter is the quiet season: daytime highs of 7–10 °C in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara, nights around zero, empty squares. We run New Year in Uzbekistan over eight days, and shorter New Year in Samarkand and New Year in Bukhara.
Mountains. Mountains of the Western Tian Shan about 80 km from Tashkent: hiking in summer, skiing in winter, the Charvak reservoir nearby. Read more → is about 85 km from Tashkent: hiking trails from May to October, ski slopes from December to March. A weekend there pairs well with a city tour; for more, there is the 4-day High Tashkent jeep expedition. More in our guide to the mountains near Tashkent.
The season in the cities runs from March to June and from September to November; see when to go. Not sure which route fits your dates? Our tour finder will narrow it down.
In short
- Nonstop flights from Moscow to Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Urgench, about 3.5–4 hours; also from St Petersburg, Kazan, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and other cities.
- No visa for Russian citizens, but you need an international passport; the internal passport is not accepted.
- Registration is not needed for the first 15 days; hotels register you at check-in anyway.
- Russian bank cards, Mir included, do not work: bring US dollars and change them at a bank.
- Tashkent is two hours ahead of Moscow, and Russian is widely understood, especially in the capital.
