Bukhara
We are in Bukhara. Bukhara was a prominent destination along the Silk Road. The city was officially founded around 500 BC but it was inhabited as the Bukhara oasis long before that. It has long been a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. Bukhara was one of the main centers of the Persian Empire. During the golden age of the Samanids (9th and 10th centuries), Bukhara was the intellectual center of the Islamic world.
Bukhara is the city of museums and contains over 140 architectural monuments of the Middle Ages including mosques, madrassas, minarets, and trading centers. Don’t worry, I’m not going to show them all. I will try to isolate a couple of posts to give you a sense of Bukhara but it won’t be enough to keep you from visiting on your own.
The Chasma Ayub Mausoleum is in the first photo. It’s a religious building in the center of Bukhara. It consists of the mausoleum and a holy spring. It also has a museum of water. The story goes that the Prophet Job (yes, that Job) was traveling along the road to Bukhara in a period of strong desert winds and intense drought. People prayed to Allah for a miracle. Job came along and struck the ground with his staff and healing water sprang up. The spring saved the people of Bukhara. People still come here and still believe that the water from the spring is pure and healing. I declined to sample the healing water as the sanitary conditions gave me some uncertainty!
The Ismail Samanid Mausoleum is in the second photo. It was built between 892 and 943 and is the final resting place of Ismail Samani, a powerful amir of the Samanid Dynasty, one of the last native Persian dynasties that ruled in Central Asia in the 9th and 10th centuries. The building is a landmark shrine. It’s a baked-brick cube covered with a dome. The walls are six feet thick. The interior is ornamented with various geometric shapes. This is perhaps the only building that pre-dates the Mongol invasion. Genghis Khan and the Mongols leveled Bukhara. But this building was out on the edge of town at that time plus it was in a cemetery and the Mongols had some aversion to the spirits of the dead, so left this building alone.
The Ark Citadel is a massive fortress located in Bukhara. You can see what’s left of it in the third photo. It was the center of the original town of Bukhara. It was initially built around the 5th century but on top of earlier buildings. It was a town within itself with some 3,000 residence. It was inhabited by various royal courts that controlled Bukhara. It was a military fortress but had galleries, rooms, and terraces. The perimeter walls are 2,590 feet around covering an area of about ten acres. The walls are 52 to 66 feet tall. The Ark was occupied and full of action from the 5th century to 1920 when the Red Army (Russia) bombed it, destroying much of it. We heard plenty of sordid stories about events in the Ark over the centuries.
The Moschea Bolo-khauz Mosque can be seen in the fourth photo. This is an 18th century mosque that is still an active mosque today. It was built in 1712 but there are a couple of stories about who built it and why. It has a vibrantly decorated wooden porch with vividly painted columns and intricate tile work. Khauz means pond and Bolo-Khauz is Children’s Reservoir. The pond is one of the most ancient parts of the complex. In early days, these reservoirs were the water source for much of the population. Unfortunately, they also became the source of many diseases.
Covered bazaars can be seen in the last photo. In the 16th century, the Sheibanids made Bukhara the capital of their state. They did large-scale construction and one type of project was covered bazaars. They became a symbol of the city and its importance on the Great Silk Road. Trade complexes were built all over Bukhara, mainly where several roads intersected. Only four such trading domes still survive today. We went inside several and you can buy whatever you want inside the bazaars.
