Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Abdul¨Aziz¨Khan¨Medressa¨
MeDReSSA
(museum of wood carvings admission 1000S;
h
9am-5pm)
F
The student rooms at the
16th-century Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa are
occupied, rather typically, by souvenir shops.
This is an unrestored gem, built by its name-
sake to outdo the Ulugbek Medressa, across
the street. The highlight is the prayer room,
now a
museum¨of¨wood¨carvings
, with
jaw-dropping
ghanch
stalactites dripping
from the ceiling. 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 pro-
hibition against depicting living beings (Ab-
dul Aziz Khan was a Shiite). The only other
medressa in town that depicts living beings
is the Nadir Divanbegi Medressa.
Its 14 ornamental bands, all different,
include the first use of the glazed blue tiles
that were to saturate Central Asia under
Timur. Up and down the south and east
sides are faintly lighter patches, mark-
ing the restoration of damage caused by
Frunze's artillery in 1920. Its 105 inner
stairs, accessible from the Kalon Mosque,
have been closed off to tourists for several
years but may reopen.
A legend says that Arslan Khan killed an
imam after a quarrel. That night in a dream
the imam told him, 'You have killed me; now
oblige me by laying my head on a spot where
nobody can tread', and the tower was built
over his grave.
o
Kalon¨Mosque¨
MoSQUe
(hoja Nurabad; admission 2000S;
h
8am-8pm)
At the foot of the minaret, on the site of an
earlier mosque destroyed by Chinggis Khan,
is the 16th-century congregational Kalon
Mosque, big enough for 10,000 people. Its
courtyard has some spectacular tile work.
Used in Soviet times as a warehouse, it was
reopened as a place of worship in 1991.
Mir-i-Arab¨Medressa¨
MeDReSSA
Opposite the Kalon mosque, its luminous
blue domes in sharp contrast to the sur-
rounding brown, is the working Mir-i-Arab
Medressa. Especially at sunset, it's among
1
Kalon Minaret & Around
Kalon¨Minaret¨
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), and has stood for almost nine
centuries. Chinggis Khan was so dumb-
founded by it that he ordered it spared.
STODDART¨&¨CONOLLY
On 24 June 1842 Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly were marched
out from a dungeon cell before a huge crowd in front of the Ark, the emir's fortiied cita-
del, made to dig their own graves and, to the sound of drums and reed pipes from atop
the fortress walls, were beheaded.
Colonel Stoddart had arrived three years earlier on a mission to reassure Emir Nas-
rullah Khan about Britain's invasion of Afghanitan. But his superiors, underetimating
the emir's vanity and megalomania, had sent him with no gifts, and with a letter not
from Queen Victoria (whom Nasrullah regarded as an equal sovereign), but from the
governor-general of India. To compound matters Stoddart violated local protocol by
riding, rather than walking, up to the Ark. The piqued Nasrullah had him thrown into jail,
where he was to spend much of his time at the bottom of the so-called 'bug pit', in the
company of assorted rodents and scaly creatures.
Captain Conolly arrived in 1841 to try to secure Stoddart's release. But the emir,
believing him to be part of a British plot with the khans of Khiva and Kokand, tossed
Conolly in jail too. After the disatrous British retreat from Kabul, the emir, convinced
that Britain was a second-rate power and having received no reply to an earlier letter to
Queen Victoria, had both men executed.
Despite public outrage back in England, the British government chose to let the mat-
ter drop. Furious friends and relatives raised enough money to send their own emissary,
an oddball clergyman named Joseph Wolf, to Bukhara to verify the news. According to
Peter Hopkirk in
The Great Game,
Wolf himself only escaped death because the emir
thought him hilarious, dressed up in his full clerical regalia.
