Ruslan Rustamov

I am Ruslan Rustamov, a territory branding, tourism and communications expert based in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. I founded Kvazar Agency, where I build brand strategies and the visual systems that carry them. I write travel.kvazar.uz, an editorial project that explains Uzbek culture, architecture and food through context rather than through a list of sights.

What I do

Branding

At Kvazar Agency I work on brand strategy and visual identity. What such work produces is not a logo but a system: a set of decisions about what a brand says, how it looks, and the rules by which that gets reproduced. The practical test is simple — can the client’s own team put together a deck, a shopfront sign or a post without asking a designer every time.

Strategy comes before graphics here, not after. Until it is settled what distinguishes a brand from the one next door and who it actually addresses, any visual system falls apart into unrelated attractive layouts. Чаще всего это HoReCa, туристические комплексы, регионы и общественно значимые проекты — там, где бренд обязан работать не только в рекламе, но и в самой инфраструктуре.

More about the agency and its projects at kvazar.agency.

travel.kvazar.uz

Uzbekistan is usually presented through three postcard domes, and that is where the account stops. What interests me is what starts after that: why a dome is that particular blue, why one Bukhara madrasah has four minarets over its gate, how Rishtan glaze differs from Gijduvan, why a minaret in Khiva breaks off at twenty-six metres. These are all things you can see with your own eyes and cannot understand without an explanation.

So travel.kvazar.uz is not built like a guidebook. A guidebook answers what should I see; this project answers what am I looking at. Hence the structure: cities and landmarks, stories about culture and history, food by region, and routes and practical guides that connect all of it to an actual trip. The project publishes in four languages, and each version is written for its own reader rather than machine-translated.

Experience

I have worked in the field since 2020: from graphic design and teaching to brand strategy and running projects. A separate strand is tourism infrastructure — at Silk Road Samarkand I was responsible for the visual and communication system of the complex (12.2024 — 10.2025).

• 10.2025 — presentKvazar AgencyHead of communications and brand projects
  • Leading brand development in HoReCa and the tourism industry
  • Brand strategies and visual systems for tourism complexes and restaurant projects
  • Building and managing a contractor pool: design, production, advertising, digital
  • Setting up workflows from idea to rollout
• 12.2024 — 10.2025Silk Road SamarkandBranding and communications specialist, brand designer
  • Developing the visual and communication system of the tourism complex
  • Maintaining single brand standards across the site's infrastructure
  • Coordinating internal departments and contractors
  • Contributing to the complex's communication strategy
• 04.2022 — 04.2023FreelanceMultidisciplinary designer, marketing specialist
  • Brands and communications for business goals
  • Visual systems and advertising materials
• 04.2020 — 02.2022Graphic designer

Education

• 2024 — 2026Higher School of BrandingBrand strategy · Brand designer and strategist, professional retraining
• 2021 — 2021KOIKADesign · Graphic designer, professional
• 2018 — 2021SOOKFinance · Finance, professional

30+ courses in marketing, PR, design and AI, 2021–2025

Competencies

Languages

• Russian — native
• English — intermediate
• Tajik — intermediate
• Uzbek — basic
• Japanese — beginner

What has been produced on this site is counted programmatically, not estimated:

• 203 articles in the English edition
• 624 articles across all four languages
• 4 languages: English, Russian, Uzbek, Chinese
• 11 cities with dedicated guides: Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva, Tashkent, Shakhrisabz, Termez, Nukus, Kokand, Margilan, Andijan, Fergana

How I handle facts

This is not a formality: what separates an author page that works from one that merely exists is whether the claims on it can be checked.

• Facts are verified, wording is my own. Dates, dimensions, names and events come from published scholarship and official sources, but I write them up in my own words. The sources are listed at the foot of each article.
• A legend is called a legend. The tale of the architect thrown from his own minaret is a good story and gets told — but it is marked as folklore, not passed off as fact.
• Prices in USD and EUR only, as ranges. The som floats, and a figure in som goes stale faster than a page can be published. Every range carries the date it was checked.
• Historical figures are described precisely. The scholars of the Islamic Golden Age were world figures born in the lands of present-day Uzbekistan. Regional craft schools are kept distinct: Rishtan and Gijduvan are separate traditions.
• Errors get fixed and recorded. If you find something inaccurate, write in — it gets corrected rather than quietly buried.

More on the editorial approach on the about page.

Articles

Everything I have written for travel.kvazar.uz — 203 pieces in the English edition. Within each section the most recently updated come first.

Get in touch

Frequently asked questions