KHIVA: A CONSERVED HERITAGE WITHIN THE SANDS - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 102

They are strengthened with semicircle towers within a defined interval
(Fig. 4). Part of these walls, very effective in city defense, was destroyed
by the Iranian ruler Nadir Shah in the 18th century. Ichan Kala, honored
as a member of UNESCO's World Heritage List, includes 2 royal palaces,
60 madrassahs, one great-size mosque (the Friday Mosque), many smaller
mosques, minarets, mausoleums, a covered bazaar, a caravanserai, a ham-
mam, and administrators' and traders' dwellings.
FIGURE 4 Ichan Kala city walls (commons.wikimedia.org, Photo by Patrickringenberg/
CC BY-SA 3.0).
Retrieved November 15, 2013 from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Khiva_
Itchan_Kala_walls.JPG
Ichan Kala has four gates called darvaza . The western gate, Ata Darva-
za, is the youngest, being 50-years old, as the previous gate was canceled
while opening the city to motor traffic and is located near Kunya Ark. The
northern gate, Bagcha Darvaza, opens up towards Urgench, the eastern
gate, Palvan Darvaza, opens towards Hazarasp and the Amu Darya river,
and the southern gate, Tash Darvaza, opens towards the Karakum Desert.
Ichan Kala, emptied during Soviet Russia, is now populated by only a
small portion of the local city population, especially by the families of
craftsmen (Macleod and Mayhew, 2004).
The eastern and oldest city gate, Palvan Darvaza, hosted a prison in the
17th century. This strongest gate was an important place, where the khan's
edicts were announced to the Khiva people, and where runaway slaves
were nailed on their ears, after being killed in the bazaar square (Khiva,