Bukhara 21 September
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Day 6: Bukhara 21 September Our first sight today was the Chor Minor (means Four Minarets) madrasa, within walking distance of our hotel. This complex was built in 1807 by Khalif Niazkul and originally, as well as the four turreted building ie four minarets, included a courtyard, a pond and a summer mosque. The minarets are rich turquoise blue. The cube shaped central building is topped with a slightly flattened cupola. This forms a galleried roof, entered by a disproportionately large arched portal against which the corner turrets press. Incongruously, the beautiful minarets contrast with the simple houses and tourist shops of the local mahalla (neighbourhood) of old Bukhara seen from the roof. The tourist shops were, refreshingly, not pushy. We bought Bukhara slippers and CDs there. We then went onto the Chashma-Ayub mausoleum Its name in Persian means Job’s spring referring to the legend in which Job (Ayub) visited this place and with a blow of his staff on the ground brought forth a spring of water. The water is considered to be pure and healing. It is stored in a metal tank and dispensed to believers by taps. The current Chashma-Ayub mausoleum Guide by water tank building was constructed during the reign of Timur. It has a conical dome that is unusual in Bukhara. Nearby is Ismail Samani mausoleum This small 10th-century mausoleum is one of Bukhara’s oldest and most elegant monuments. Built for the founder of the Samanid dynasty, its delicate terracotta brickwork changes in appearance with shadows cast throughout the day and covers walls 2m thick that have never needed significant repair. Ismail Sumani’s tomb has a niche at its base to enable people to post problems for him to solve after his death (ie in his after-life). On our way to the Bolo-Hauz Mosque we visited two madrasahs that had been converted to domed shops and bought a carpet saddle bag / wall hanging in one of them. Bolo-Hauz (children’s pool) Mosque in Bukhara, also known as the Forty Pillar Mosque, is the 17th century mosque, which was a place of prayer for the Emirs and their entourage. It is the only preserved monument in the Registan Square (much smaller than Samarkand’s) and has a multi-column gallery and colonnade. The slender, elegantly carved wooden pillars hold up a beautifully restored painted coffered ceiling. The domed mosque also has a minaret and a small pool. The pool is the oldest part of the ensemble and reflects the columns and minaret. The Emir would stride out of a Friday from his residence in the nearby Registan for the noon prayers. Today the faithful still come here to pray, and there are often so many that they spill out of the mosque onto the platform near the reflecting pool. From here we walked to Bukhara Fortress, the Ark. The Ark is a massive earthen fortress located in the north western section of the city. It was initially built and occupied around the 5th century AD. In addition to being a military structure, the Ark encompassed what was essentially a town made up of various royal courts that held sway over the region surrounding Bukhara. It was used as a fortress until it fell to Russia in 1920. Now the ruins of the Ark are a tourist attraction and house museums covering its history. The walls of the fortress Entrance to the ark fortress Two 18th century towers architecturally frame the ceremonial entrance to the citadel. A gallery, rooms, and terraces connect the upper towers. A gradually rising ramp leads through a winch-raised portal and a covered long corridor to the mosque of Dzhuma. The covered corridor offers access to storerooms and prison cells. In the centre of the Ark is located a large complex of buildings, one of the best preserved being the mosque of Ul'dukhtaron, In legend, the creator of the Ark was the epic hero, Siyavusha. As a youth, he hid in a rich oasis away from his stepmother where he met and fell in love with the daughter of the local ruler of Afrosiaba. The girl's father agreed to permit them to marry provided that Siyavusha first built a palace in the area bounded by a bull’s skin. This was obviously intended to be an impossible task. But Siyavusha cut the bull skin into thin strips, connected the ends, and inside this boundary built the palace. The present Ark is built on the remains of earlier structures, which constitute a layer of twenty meters depth under the base arch, the layers indicating that previous fortresses had been built and destroyed on the site. The first known reference to the Ark is in the ‘History of Bukhara’ by Abubakra of Narshakhi (899 - 960). Nashriki wrote ‘Biden, the ruler of Bukhara, built this fortress, but it soon was destroyed. Many times it was constructed, many times destroyed.’ Nashriki says that when the last ruler to rebuild asked counsel of his wise men, they advised him to construct the fortress around seven points, located in the same relation to each other as the stars of the constellation Ursa Major. Thus built, the fortress was never again destroyed. Emirs, their chief viziers, military leaders, and numerous servants lived deep inside the Ark. When the soldiers of Genghis Khan took Bukhara many other city inhabitants sought refuge in the Ark. The army smashed the defences and ransacked the fortress that was subsequently restored and improved during the middle ages. It contained a great library, of which Avicenna wrote: ‘I found in this library such books, about which I had not known and which I had never before seen in my life. I read them, and I came to know each scientist and each science. Before me lay gates of inspiration into great depths of knowledge which I had not surmised to exist.’ The library was destroyed following one of the conquests of Bukhara. The Ark itself, including its harem, was greatly damaged by the Bolsheviks who used aircraft to bomb it during the brief siege of Bukhara in 1920. Sitorai and Mokhi-Khosa summer palace This is the only remaining example of the Bukharan Emirs’ country palaces and is made up of the old palace of Abdul-Akhad-khan (1892), a traditional three-house complex with one- and two-storey buildings, and the new Sayid-Alim Palace White hall Sayid-Alim-khan Palace (1917). This palace is made up of a pavilion and some isolated courtyards, surrounded by a large park. It includes the ‘white hall’ whose walls are decorated with tracery fretwork on mirrors by the famous Bukharan master Shirin Muradov. Villas and arbours were built in 1917-1918, reflecting both European Eastern style. Examples of ornate gold-embroidery, clothing and ceramics are on display. In the garden, by the modern pavilion is a large ‘maidenly’ pond, where khan’s concubines lived as well as an arbour and gardens with exotic birds where he spent his leisure time with them. After lunch at what had become our favourite restaurant at the Lab-i-Hauz, we visited a marionette atelier and returned to the carpet sellers. Following hard bargaining we bought a camel wool ‘bashir’ design Bukhara carpet and a sumac (embroidered on keilim) from Shukrat at Tim Abdullah’s shop, using a mixture of Visa and cash. Our driver, Shuvcat kindly took it back to Tashkent for our later collection. We bad goodbye to him and our guide who presented us with gifts of an embroidered bag and slippers. Camel wool bashir carpet Sumac That evening we reflected on the amazing history of the Silk Road, particularly Samarkand and Bukhara in this stretch, and the splendors of the East. We understood why our European forbears were so taken by these magnificent cities and felt privileged to have visited. If anything, we preferred Bukhara to Samarkand because it was less spread out and had a real Middle Ages and Mediaeval feel to it, despite extensive rebuilding. .