UZBEKISTAN SEPT 24 2015

Sept 24, 2015

Up too late made me very tired at 7am. Also the night was interrupted with an empty belly. I was hungry.

I was packed and ready for breakfast by 7:40am. Ugh, that's early, and I have to do it tomorrow, too.

Breakfast was ok...but fewer choices than some hotels, I had a crepe with fruit filling, some pastry this with potato in it, and some eggs.

Out the door at 8am sharp, our first site was Mauseloem of Samani Dynasty. -

The Samanid mausoleum is located in the historic center of the city of Bukhara, in a park laid out on the site of an ancient cemetery. This mausoleum, one of the most esteemed sights of Central Asian architecture, was built in the 9th (10th) century (between 892 and 943) as the resting-place of Ismail Samani - a powerful and influential amir of the Samanid dynasty, one of the Persian dynasties that ruled in Central Asia, who held the city in the 9th and 10th centuries. Although in the first instance the Samanids were Governors of Khorasan and Transoxiana under the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliphate, the dynasty soon established virtual independence from Baghdad.

For many years the lower part of the mausoleum remained under a two-meter high layer of sediment. Now the foundations have been cleared of these obstacles and the mausoleum, fully restored, is open for observation from all sides as was initially planned by the builders.

The fact that the religious law of Islam strictly prohibits the construction of mausoleums over burial places stresses the significance of the Samanid mausoleum, which is the most ancient monument of Islamic architecture in Central Asia and the sole monument that survived from the epoch of the Samanid Dynasty. Therefore, the Samanid mausoleum might be one of the earliest departures from that religious restriction in the history of Islamic architecture.

The monument marks a new era in the development of Central Asian architecture, which was revived after the Arab conquest of the region. The architects continued to use an ancient tradition of baked brick construction, but to a much higher standard than had been seen before. The construction and artistic details of the brickwork (see picture), are still enormously impressive, and display traditional features dating back to pre-Islamic culture.

The park is impeccably maintained and is filled with beautiful flower shop everywhere. The clay brick construction with squares, circles, and triangles is quite unique.

From here we walked to the Chasma-Ayub Mausoleum, Its name means Job's well, due to the legend in which Job (Ayub) visited this place and made a well by striking the ground with his staff. The water of this well is still pure and is considered healing. The current building was constructed during the reign of Timur and features a Khwarazm-style conical dome uncommon in Bukhara.

Chashma-Ayub Mausoleum is in the middle of a small, ancient cemetery. The construction suffered some losses, but the preserved parts represent a combination of a harmonious entrance portal, and adjoining it are the remains of the western curtain wall.

The construction layout of the portal is in a traditional pattern, made up in the form of two pylons, forming the niche overlapped by the semi vault. The II-shaped frame, the inside of which forms the obverse surface, tympanum, and ktoba, is finished with an inscription above the lancet arch.

The northern part of the niche portal is a limited gable wall with a doorway. From the western end the portal is adjoined by a deep brick wall that measures 5.9 m, of which the western portion has been lost. The wall is in the form of a trapezoid with a large base.

The central room is overlapped by the tent-peaked dome. Except for the proportions of the construction, this monument has well-considered and perfectly executed decoration, the basic part of which is concentrated on the portal.

The most effective place in the general composition of the decoration is ktoba, filled with Arabic inscriptions on a background of botanical ornamentation. The portal frame on the external contour is marked by the II-shaped zone, strengthened by girikh from intertwining octahedrons, made of terracotta bricks. Glazed inserts in turquoise fill the central octahedral sockets. A tape borders the frame and ktoba.

The historical value of the monument consists of the exact dating written on ktoba (1208-1209 .A.D.) or the 605th year of the Muslim Calendar.

From here we sent to a nearby spice bazaar. It was aromatic and colorful. With the guides help I bought some cinnamon bark, whole cloves, and a spice mix for marinating meat...actually smelled wonderful. I also bought some roasted chickpeas. They were tasty.. Time to move on.

From here we walked through a street with an unseal vendor, he had some trinkets but also some unusual devices. They were made of wood and used to channel the urine away from the baby and into a bladder under the crib...no pampers here. I had to buy one...so strange.

I was reaching for the device and...dropped my camera. I have a hand strap to prevent just this thing. I quickly picked up the camera and inspected it. The cap was dusty but there was no visible damage, I tried to turn it on ...crunch, crunch, crunch. This was not good. I tried to take a pic or two and it did but with much fanfare. Oh no...hold out until the end of the day.

A quick stop at the Bolo Hauz Mosque - It's the only surviving monument in Registan Square, which includes a mosque, minaret and a pool. The pool is the oldest part of the ensemble and is one of the few remaining in the ancient city; for the honor of this pool the mosque is called Bolo-Hauz (children’s pool). In the water of the pond one can see a reflection of the colorfully painted ayvan – a gallery with colonnade – and of the minaret.

The Mosque was built in 1712 for the mother of Ashtarkhanid ruler Abul Fayud Khan (1711-47). Another version states that the Emir Shakhmurad (1785-1800) built it for public prayers, because he liked to be closer to his people. Although the mosque was built as a royal chapel, it has become a significant civic monument as a consequence of its eminent site near the famed Registan Square.

Pond, Bolo Hauz Mosque, BukharaLater, Bukhara’s last Emir Sayyid Alim Khan (1910-20) ordered to build a richly decorated entry ‘aywan’ (terrace) to the mosque’s eastern façade during a general reconstruction of the area in 1914-17. In 1917, famed local master craftsman, Shirin Muradov built a small minaret in front of the mosque.

Also known as the Forty Pillar Mosque, this is where the Emir would stride out of a Friday from his residence in the nearby Registan for the noon prayers. Its slender, elegantly carved wooden pillars hold up a beautifully restored painted coffered ceiling. On Fridays once again the faithful come here to pray, and there are often so many that they spill out of the mosque onto the platform near the reflecting pool.

Across the street is The Ark of Bukhara is a massive fortress that 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 that, during much of the fortress' history, was inhabited by the various royal courts that held sway over the region surrounding Bukhara. The Ark was used as a fortress until it fell to Russia in 1920.

In legend, the creator of the Ark was the epic hero Siyavusha. As a youth, he hid in the rich oasis country of Turana from his stepmother. Siyavusha and the daughter of the local ruler of Afrosiaba fell in love. The girl's father agreed to permit them to marry provided that Siyavusha would first build a palace on the area bounded by a bull skin, obviously intended as an impossible task. But Siyavusha cut the bull skin into slender strips, connected the ends, and inside this boundary built the palace.

The Ark is built on the remains of earlier structures, which constitute a layer twenty meters deep 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 contained in the "History of Bukhara" by Abubakra of Narshakhi (899 - 960). Abubakra wrote "Biden, the ruler of Bukhara, built this fortress, but it soon was destroyed. Many times it was constructed, many times destroyed." Abubakra 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.[3]

Walls of the Ark

The age of the Ark has not been established accurately, but by 500 AD it was already the residence of local rulers. Here, in the fastness of the citadel, lived the emirs, their chief viziers, military leaders, and numerous servants.

When the soldiers of Genghis Khan took Bukhara, the inhabitants of the city found refuge in the Ark, but the conquerors smashed the defenders and ransacked the fortress.

In the Middle Ages the fortress was worked on by Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Avicenna, Farabi, and later Omar Khayyám. Here also was kept 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. ”

Most probably, the library was destroyed following one of the conquests of Bukhara.

During the Russian Civil War, the Ark was greatly damaged by Red Army troops under the command of Mikhail Frunze during the 1920 Battle of Bukhara. Frunze ordered the Ark bombed by aircraft, which left a large part of the structure in ruins. There is also reason to believe that the last Emir, Alim Khan (1880–1944), who escaped to Afghanistan with the royal treasury, ordered the Ark to be blown up so that its secret places (especially the harem) could not be desecrated by the Bolsheviks. And in fact the harem building did suffer great damage, being reduced to rubble to the extent that archaeologists have pronounced it incapable of restoration.

As it was now afternoon, we went through another bazaar to reach a local tea house. I had been feeling quite bad all morning...stomach something, I asked the docs and they said try to throw up if I could and maybe try some herbal tea. I had mint tea...tasty. Before I left...I had two very productive sessions, trying to rid myself of the invader,

On I went, next stop, Po-i-Kalyan, which means "The Foot of the Great"), is an Islamic religious complex located around the Kalyan minaret.

The complex is located in the historic part of the city. Since 713, several ensembles of main mosques were built in this area, to the south of the Ark citadel. One of these complexes, burned down by Genghis Khan during the siege of Bukhara, was built in 1121 by the Karakhanid ruler Arslan-khan. The Kalyan minaret is the only one of the structures of Arslan-han complex that was kept safe during that siege.

Kalyan minaret is known more properly as Minâra-i Kalân (Pesian/Tajik for the "Grand Minaret"). It is also known as the Tower of Death because for centuries criminals were executed by being thrown from the top.

The minaret is the most famed part of the complex, which dominates the historical center of the city in the form of a huge vertical pillar. The role of the minaret is largely for traditional and decorative purposes - its dimension exceeds the bounds of the main function of the minaret, which is to provide a vantage point from which the muezzin can call people to prayer. For this purpose it was enough to ascend to a roof of the mosque. This practice was common in initial years of Islam. The word "minaret" is derived from the Arabic word "manara" ("lighthouse", or more literally "a place where something burn"). Probably the idea for the minarets of Islam was adopted from "fire-towers" or lighthouses of previous epochs.

The architect, whose name was simply Bako, made a minaret in the form of a circular-pillar brick tower, narrowing upwards, of 9 meters (29.53 feet) diameter at the bottom, 6 meters (19.69 feet) overhead and 45.6 meters (149.61 feet) high. There is a brick spiral staircase that twists up inside around the pillar, leading to the landing in sixteen-arched rotunda - skylight, which based on a magnificent stalactite cornice (sharafa).

Kalyan Mosque (Maedjid-i kalyan) was completed circa 1514, in the Khanate of Bukhara. It is equal in size to the Bibi-Khanym Mosque in Samarkand. Although they are both mosques, they are very different in architectural styles. The roof of the galleries encircling the mosque's inner courtyard has 288 domes resting on 208 pillars. Facing the courtyard is a tall tiled Iwan portal, for entry to the main prayer hall. The mosque is surmounted by a large blue tiled dome.

The place where the complex Po-i-Kalyan is located is the site of a few completely ruined buildings from the past. In pre-Islamic era there was a central cathedral for fire-worshippers. Since 713 here, at the site south of the Ark, several edifices of main cathedral mosque were built then razed, restored after fires and wars, and moved from place to place. In 1127, the Karakhanid ruler Arslan-khan completed construction on the cathedral mosque with the minaret. The greatness of the structures so amazedGenghis Khan, he mistakenly believed the mosque to be a khans' palace. Nevertheless, the building of the mosque was not spared by the fire, and for many years after the conflagration it lay in ruins. All that remained intact of the original building was the minaret Kalyan (Minara-yi-Kalyan).

After the death of Shaibani-khan in 1510, most local rulers (emirs and sultans) only partially recognized the central government. The capital of the Shaibanid state was in Samarkand. In 1512 the nephew of Shaibani-khan, the young prince Muizz ad-Din Abu-l Gazi Ubaidullah, became sultan of Bukhara. He inherited the power from his father Mahmud-sultan, who was the cadet brother of Shaibani-khan and his faithful companion-in-arms. Until 1533, Ubaidullah-sultan was a successful governor of Bukhara, when he was enthroned as a khan of whole Shaibanid state - khan of Maverannahr (Ma wara'u'n-nahr). In spite of this he refused to move his residence to Samarkand - the state capitol. Moreover, he later made Bukhare the capital of the Shaibanid state. Afterwards, the state governed by Ubaidullah (Ubaidulla) received a new name - Bukhara khanate. Thus Ubaidullah-khan (gov. 1533-1539) became the first khan of Bukhara khanate. While Ubaidullah-khan was the khan of Maverannahr, his son Abdul-Aziz-khan was the khan of Bukhara. They considered Bukhara to be their family lot. They were patriots of Bukhara and cared for success of the city.

The fact that the governor of Bukhara in 1514 built such grand mosque, which could rival with the symbol of royal Samakand - the Bibi-Khanym Mosque, shows a tendency to eventually make Bukhara the capital of the Shaibanid state. By the construction of Kalyan Mosque, Ubaidullah-sultan started the formation of a new capital, rather than fighting for domination over Samarkand, which was always hostile to Shaibanids.

The construction of Mir-i-Arab Madrasah (Miri Arab Madrasah) is credited to Sheikh Abdullah Yamani of Yemen. Also called Mir-i-Arab, he was considered the spiritual mentor of Ubaidullah-khan and his son Abdul-Aziz-khan. Ubaidullah-khan waged a successful war against Iran. At least three times his troops seized Herat. Each plundering raid on Iran resulted in the capture of a great many captives. The money Ubaidullah-khan earned from selling three thousand Persian captives funded the construction of Mir-i-Arab Madrasah. Ubaidullah-khan was very religious. He had been nurtured in high respect for Islam in the spirit of Sifism. His father named him in honor of prominent sheikh of the 15-th century Ubaidullah al-Ahrar (1404-1490), by origin from Tashkent province.

By the 1630s, sovereigns no longer erected splendid mausoleums for themselves and for their relatives. Khans of Shaibanid dynasty were standard-bearers of Koran traditions. The significance of religion was so great that even such a famed khan as Ubaidullah was buried next to his mentor in his madrasah. In the middle of the vault (gurhana) in Mir-i-Arab, Madrasah is situated in the wooden tomb of Ubaidullah-khan. At his head is wrapped in the moulds his mentor - Mir-i-Arab. Muhammad Kasim, mudarris (a senior teacher) of the madrasah (died in 1047 hijra) is also interred nearby.

The portal of Miri Arab Madrasah is situated on one axis with the portal of the Kalyan Mosque. However, because of some lowering of the square to the east, it was necessary to raise the edifice of the madrasah on a platform.

While walking this complex, the camera crunched every time I turned it on. Now, it would no longer focus. My iPhone was in my backpack on the bus. I had a problem, as this was THE most important site, for me, in Bukhara, I needed a solution. Michael allowed me to use his camera for shots here and some other sites we visited. Thank your Michael.

Continuing the action packed day, we visited Abdulaziz Khan Madrassah (Museum of Wood Carving Art. The Abdulazizkhan madrasah, which is located opposite to the Ulughbek Madrassah in Buhara was built in 1652. Facing one another, these two madrasahs compose a single architectural ensemble called Kosh Madrassah, which is common in Bukhara. These two madrassahs, Madrassah of Ulughbek and Madrassah of Abdul Aziz Khan, stand facing each other for many centuries and represent two dinastieds once ruled Bukhara - Timurid and Ashtarkhanids.

Ulughbek Madrassah was built by the Great Temur’s (Tamerlane) grandson Ulughbek, whereas the Madrassah of Abdulazizkhan bears the name of the Bukharian Emir, Abdulaziz khan, who is the founder of the madrassah.

In Bukharan and Central Asian architecture, the Abdulazizkhan madrasah stands out with its rich decor of facede, portal and interior. The Madrassah was built on the Persian model, with a large courtyard, divided by four iwans. Of great interest is the decoration of walls with genre pictures, which was an innovation in the traditional architecture of that time. The portal of the madrasah is ornamented with the Chinese dragon and Semurg, a legendary Persian bird.

Museum of Wood Carving was closed.

The largest market we visited is called the trade domes, it was several different structures with some courtyards in between. All types of souvenirs / crafts were sold here.

What I bought.

Finally,, my last site would be The Magoki-Attori Mosque. It is an example of an urban mosque in a residential quarter. The mosque was built on the site of the pre-lslamic Moh temple mentioned above. Excavations have revealed the fact that even under the Samanids there was a six-pier mosque, which apparently was also domed. However, it was rebuilt substantially in the twelfth century; the floor level was upgraded and the main facade received a new design that survives with little damage only. By the sixteenth century, the thickness of cultural layers had increased so much that mosque seemed to sink deep into the soil and its facade was unearthed only as a result of excavations carried out in the 1930s.

Magoki-Attori Mosque, Bukhara, UzbekistanThe facade of the mosque is asymmetrical. To the right it has a portal with a recessed vault, fringed with rectangular strips; the architectural decor is composed of covered bricks which form geometric shapes and tiles of carved terra-cotta bearing vegetation patterns. Carved terracotta is also used in decorating the pylons and the vaults of the arches, combined with vegetation patterns with inscriptions covered with blue glaze. All in all, the Magoki-Attori Mosque is an excellent example of Central Asian architecture during the Kara-khanid

From here the bus was close. It would take is to the final site of the day. I couldn't really take any more. I grabbed my backpack and everyone else went to Chor-Minor Madrassa.

I retraced my steps all the way back to the center of the large bazaar. I wanted to take pics but also spend my last Uzbek Som. I found a miniature of Ark Fortress...well done also.

A few stops and I was back in the room. I really started to feel worse. I was burning up and achy. I turned the a/c on and blasted it,

Michael was anon back in the room. We both checked email and dealt with pics. ,y camera did allow me to transfer my pics onto the iPad. It wouldn't, however, allow me to grander Michaels SD card of pics. He put them on my SD card and I can receive them later.

guhlnarah brought by the yoghurt bacteria med that she spoke of...nice of her. Michael told me that I shouldn't take it unless I had diarrhea. So...that came in about an hour.

I was miserable. I needed to pack and fill out my departure form for Uzbekistan.

Rest...I feel so bad. I just need rest.