The city will have this status for a year, during which a series of creative meetings, tours, and exhibitions will take place there.

The Kazakh publication Kursiv, in particular, informed that the ceremony for presenting a certificate conferring the title of cultural capital of the CIS to Samarkand was held at the regional music and drama theater named after Hamid Alimdjan. The event was attended by the Minister of Culture of Uzbekistan Ozodbek Nazarbekov and the representative of Russia in the Council for Humanitarian Cooperation of the CIS Member States Mikhail Shvydkoy.

The Commonwealth Capitals of Culture program began to be implemented in 2010. This status is awarded to one of the CIS cities every year. Thus, previously the cultural capital was St. Petersburg.