The country's flagship museum, founded in 1876 by the Russian colonial administration as the Turkestan Museum. The collection runs from the Stone Age through Bactrian and Sogdian civilisations to the Soviet period — vastly more substantial than the patriotic Timurid story you get at the Amir Timur Museum.
The Buddhist Bactrian material on the second floor is the standout: stucco fragments, a famous reclining Buddha from Fayoz Tepa, and Greek-Buddhist Gandhara-style sculpture. The colonial-period rooms are also fascinating, with photographs of nineteenth-century Tashkent before the earthquake. Closed Mondays.