Bukhara - or stepping back in time

9 July 2022.

Along with Khiva and Samarkand, Bukhara is one of Uzbekistan's showpieces. It is also Central Asia’s holiest city, with buildings spanning a thousand years of history. It has a thoroughly lived-in and cohesive old centre that hasn’t changed too much in two centuries (thereby giving us a glimpse of the pre-Soviet era), full of madrasas and minarets, a massive royal fortress and the remnants of a once-vast market complex. All within walking distance.

We started off at the spectacular-looking Ark, a royal town-within-a-town, and Bukhara’s oldest structure, occupied from the 5th century right up until 1920, when it was bombed by the Red Army. For centuries it was the residence of the emirs of Bukhara. It’s about 80% ruins but there are still some remaining royal quarters, now housing several interesting museums.

In 1842, the British officers, Connolly and Stoddart were executed in front of the fortress. It was the grim finale to years of torture (for Stoddart, four years) in the Zindon prison located nearby. However, the most famous resident of Zindon was not a person, but a place: “the Bug Pit,” a four meter deep hole, accessible only by rope. This bleak pit is where Connolly and Stoddart spent their time in Zindon, while guards poured scorpions, bugs, and rodents onto their heads.

Visible from just about everywhere in the Old Town is the Kalon Minaret. Built in 1127, it was probably the tallest building in Central Asia. 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. Genghis Khan was so dumbfounded by it that he ordered it spared while his troops ransacked the rest of the city. The rotunda at the top has 16 windows from which the authorities hurled ‘criminals’. An architectural masterpiece its 14 ornamental bands, all different, include the first use of the glazed blue tiles that were to saturate Central Asia under the Timurids. Its 105 inner stairs, accessible from the Kalon Mosque, have been closed off to tourists for several years now.

In the adjacent Kalon Mosque, whose courtyard features some spectacular tilework, 10,000 Bukharans can pray together on Fridays (the Soviets used the building as a warehouse.) For centuries Bukhara had been a centre of learning, the religious and cultural heart of Central Asia really, at least before the Mongols and then the Tatars. And there is still learning, opposite the mosque, boys streamed in to the Kalon Madrasa to study to become imams.

Nearby are the trading domes. In the Middle Ages, Bukhara was a major shopping center. Merchants from all over the world - China, Russia, India, Iran, and all of Central Asia - passing along the Great Silk Road, stopped there. The four trading domes which still exist today, each unique in architecture and design, are the remnants of the vast market complex that existed at the crossroads of these once busy streets and squares. The biggest is the Toki-Zargaron Dome, dating back to the 16th century, and translated as "the dome of jewelers" was originally used exclusively by jewelry shops. Today many other items can be purchased there.

Just outside the historic center in the Samani park, past the beautiful Bolo Hauz Mosque, is the tapered and domed cube of the Ismael Samani Mausoleum. The town’s oldest Muslim monument, completed in 905, is also one of its most architecturally interesting. Built for Ismail Samani (the founder of the Samanid dynasty who ruled here at that time), its intricate baked terracotta brickwork, which changes 'personality' through the day as the shadows shift, disguises walls almost 2m thick, helping it survive without restoration for 11 centuries.

It had certainly not been our intention to visit any of the local hospitals in Bukhara but we ended doing that anyway as Mylene sought treatment for a wasp bite on her foot which had become very swollen. No doctor in the four clinics we ran to was willing however to give her the tetanus injection she had asked for. To console herself, she spent a relaxing hour in a 600 year old hammam bathhouse and came out after a vigorous scrub and scented massage feeling like a new person.

Having now visited all the most interesting sights (and clinics) in the historic center, we hired the services of Ali, a local taxi-driver, to drive us to a few of those further afield.

First up was the Emir’s Summer Palace, 6km to the north. Built between 1912-18, it gives a good insight into the lifestyle of the last emir, Alim Khan. The three-building compound mixes Russian architecture with Central Asian design in an explosion of kitsch. In front of the harem is a pool where the women frolicked, overlooked by a wooden pavilion from which the emir supposedly tossed an apple to his chosen bedmate.

Next up was Char Bakr, a peaceful and little-visited burial complex a few kilometres west of Bukhara and a good place to escape the tour bus crowds. The main mosque and pilgrim resthouse are linked by madrasa cells that allow access to the rooftop. A street of tombs to the side leads to the 10th-century mausolea of two of the Prophet Muhammad’s closest companions, Sheikh Abu Bakr Fazl and Sheikh Abu Bakr Sayid. We finished our visit there with a delicious grilled lamb tandoori washed down with litres of chilled wild cherry compote juice at a nearby restaurant together with Ali.

Our last stop with Ali was to the photogenic, quirky little Char Minar. Lost in a maze of alleys to the north-east of the town, it bears more relation to Indian styles than to anything Bukharan. This was the gatehouse of a long-gone madrasa built in 1807. The name means ‘Four Minarets’ in Tajik, although they aren’t strictly speaking minarets but rather decorative towers. We were able to climb to the rooftop for a modest fee paid to the caretaker who opened it specially for us.

The next day, Ali drove us back to the train station: lounging on our comfortable seats on the fast, air conditioned train to Tashkent, our heads were still full of the amazing images of Bukhara, a place truly like no other we had yet seen on this earth.