Taschkent reached the final round of the second game author contest, which we did at www.spielmaterial.de. In this respect the game is based on the components of the game Candamir, which was published at the time in the Kosmos publishing house and belongs to the CATAN games world.
Taschkent is a tactical trading game, in which one can generate actions, goods and money during the action stages through a traveling mechanism. In the trading round, which begins at a random moment, there is the matter of exchanging goods at various trading posts for money or other commodities which bring victory points. But demand is limited, which is why the starting player has a (bought!) advantage here – he can possibly sell more. Most importantly, it is a matter of traded goods, but the player with the least amount of collected money is eliminated from the game, so you have to keep both in mind!
The author, Peer Sylvester, submitted a prototype which was graphically still very rudimentary. To this extent it was in the hand of the illustrator Klemens Franz to completely reshape the game board. As usual, limited space is a challenge for the illustrator.
from the author’s original draft … 
through a first design consideration … 
… to a more concrete form … 
… to the final board!
Historical background
Tashkent is today the capital of Uzbekistan with more than 2 million inhabitants. The city is located north of the great Silk Road on the border with Kazakhstan on the western edge of the Tian-Shan and is an industrial city and transport hub.
The Silk Road is a network of caravan routes, the main route connecting the Mediterranean to East Asia. Not only merchants, scholars, and armies, but also ideas, religions, and whole cultures from East to West, and vice versa traveled along it.
