Showing 1-24 of 24 results
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Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa
The student rooms (across from Ulugbek Medressa) at the 16th-century Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa are occupied, rather typically, by souvenir shops. This is another unrestored gem, built by its namesake to outdo the Ulugbek Medressa in size and splendour.
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Borzi Kord
Folk rave about Bukhara's famed hammomi (baths), most notably the Borzi Kord. It's technically a men's bathhouse but groups of tourists can reserve it after hours for mixed use.
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Char Minar
Photogenic little Char Minar, in a maze of alleys between Pushkin and Hoja Nurabad, bears more relation to Indian styles than to anything Bukharan. This was the gatehouse of a long-gone medressa built in 1807. The name means 'Four Minarets' in Tajik, although they aren't strictly minarets but simply decorative towers. Unesco restored one collapsed tower and fixed another in 1998.
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Chashma Ayub 'mausoleum'
Nearby Ismail Samani Mausoleum in Samani Park, is the peculiar Chashma Ayub 'mausoleum', built from the 12th to 16th centuries over a spring. The name means 'Spring of Job'; legend says Job struck his staff on the ground here and a spring appeared. Inside you can drink from the spring. It is now, sadly, overshadowed by a glistening new glass-walled memorial to Imam Ismail al-Bukhari next door.
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Covered Bazaars
From Shaybanid times, the area west and north from Lyabi-Hauz was a vast warren of market lanes, arcades and crossroad minibazaars whose multidomed roofs were designed to draw in cool air. Three remaining domed bazaars, heavily renovated in Soviet times, were among dozens of specialised bazaars in the town - Taqi-Sarrafon (moneychangers), Taqi-Telpak Furushon (cap makers) and Taqi-Zargaron (jewellers). They remain only loosely faithful to those designations today.
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Faizullah Khojaev House
Faizullah Khojaev House was once home to one of Bukhara's many infamous personalities, the man who plotted with the Bolsheviks to dump Emir Alim Khan. Faizullah Khojaev was rewarded with the presidency of the Bukhara People's Republic, chairmanship of the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR, and finally liquidation by Stalin.
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Gaukushan Medressa
West of Taqi-Sarrafon is the interesting 16th-century Gaukushan Medressa with chipped majolica on its unrestored façade.
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Hoja Zayniddin Mosque
Across from the Ark on Hoja Nurabad, the interior of the 16th-century Hoja Zayniddin Mosque has some of the best very old, original mosaic and ghanch work you're going to see anywhere.
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Ismail Samani Mausoleum
This mausoleum in Samani Park, completed in 905, is the town's oldest Muslim monument and probably its sturdiest architecturally. Built for Ismail Samani (the Samanid dynasty's founder), his father and grandson, its intricate baked terracotta brickwork - which gradually changes 'personality' through the day as the shadows shift - disguises walls almost 2m thick, helping it survive without restoration (except of the spiked dome) for 11 centuries.
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Kalon Minaret
When it was built by the Karakhanid ruler Arslan Khan in 1127, the Kalon Minaret was probably the tallest building in Central Asia - kalon means 'great' in Tajik. It's an incredible piece of work, 47m tall with 10m-deep foundations (including reeds stacked underneath in an early form of earthquake-proofing), which in 850 years has never needed any but cosmetic repairs. Jenghiz Khan was so dumbfounded by it that he ordered it spared.
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Kalon Mosque
At the foot of the Kalon Minaret, on the site of an earlier mosque destroyed by Jenghiz Khan, is the 16th-century congregational Kalon Mosque, big enough for 10,000 people. Used in Soviet times as a warehouse, it was reopened as a place of worship in 1991.
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Lyabi-Hauz
Lyabi-Hauz, a plaza built around a pool in 1620 (the name is Tajik for 'around the pool'), is the most peaceful and interesting spot in town - shaded by mulberry trees as old as the pool. The old tea-sipping, chessboard-clutching Uzbek men who once inhabited this corner of town have been moved on by local entrepreneurs bent on cashing in on the tourist trade. Still, the plaza maintains its old-world style and has managed to fend off the glitz to which Samarkand's Registan has succumbed.
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Maghoki-Attar
Between the two covered bazaars Taqi-Sarrafon and Taqi-Telpak Furushon, in what was the old herb and spice bazaar, is Central Asia's oldest surviving mosque, the Maghoki-Attar, a lovely mishmash of 9th-century façade and 16th-century reconstruction. This is probably also the town's holiest spot: under it in the 1930s archaeologists found bits of a 5th-century Zoroastrian temple ruined by the Arabs, and an earlier Buddhist temple.
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Medressas
Southeast of Samani Park are two massive medressas, one named for the great Shaybanid ruler Abdulla Khan, and one for his mother called Modari Khan (mother of the khan). The latter is locked, the former contains yet more crafts shops.
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Mir-i-Arab Medressa
Opposite the Kalon Mosque, its luminous blue domes in sharp contrast to the surrounding brown, is the working Mir-i-Arab Medressa. Especially at sunset, it's among Uzbekistan's most striking medressas, but tourists can only go as far as the foyer. From there you may peer through a grated door into the courtyard, where you might see students playing ping-pong.
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Museum of Art
Museum of Art has mostly 20th-century paintings by Bukharan artists, some of which can be purchased in a gallery on the ground floor. It's in the former headquarters of the Russian Central Asian Bank (1912).
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Museum of Wood Carvings
The highlight of the Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa (Taqi-Zargaron Area) is the prayer room, now a museum of wood carvings, with spectacular original ghanch work. It is said that Abdul Aziz had the image of his face covertly embedded in the prayer room's mihrab (Mecca-facing niche) to get around the Sunni Muslim prohibition against depicting living beings (Adul Aziz Khan was a Shiite).
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Saifuddin Bukharzi Mausoleum
Two kilometres east of the centre on Bakhautdin Naqshband, the mammary-like twin domes of the Saifuddin Bukharzi Mausoleum tower over the delicate little Buyan Khuli Khan Mausoleum. With sheep grazing in the foreground and a massive cooking-oil factory looming in the background, this spot might as well be a metaphor for Central Asia. Taxi drivers know this place as 'Rayon Fatobod Bogi'.
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The Ark
The Ark, a royal town-within-a-town, is Bukhara's oldest structure, occupied from the 5th century right up until 1920, when it was bombed by the Red army. It's about 80% ruins inside now, except for some remaining royal quarters, now housing several museums.
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Turki Jandi mausoleum
Deep in the old town is the tiny, decrepit Turki Jandi mausoleum favoured for getting one's prayers answered. It's the resting place of a holy man known as Turki Jandi, his two sons, several grandsons and numerous other relations. Its importance is signalled by the hundreds of other graves around it - allegedly in stacks 30m deep! It's under slow, devoted restoration and was closed when we visited.
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Ulugbek Medressa
A few steps east of the Taqi-Zargaron Bazaar, on the north side of Hoja Nurabad, is Central Asia's oldest medressa, and a model for many others - the unrestored, blue-tiled Ulugbek Medressa, one of three built by Ulugbek (the others are at Gijduvan, 45km away on the road to Samarkand, and in Samarkand's Registan complex).
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Water Tower
Beside Bolo-Hauz Mosque (opposite the Ark) is a now-disused 33m water tower , built by the Russians in 1927. If you are going to climb this, you best not be afraid of heights or rickety-looking Soviet structures. The views of the Ark and beyond are worth the sum1000 demanded by the local shepherd or whoever else is around.
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Zindon
Behind the Ark is Zindon, the jail, now a museum. Cheerful attractions include a torture chamber and several dungeons, including the gruesome 'bug pit' where Stoddart and Conolly languished in a dark chamber filled with lice, scorpions and other vermin.
Showing 1-24 of 24 results
