The city’s oldest remains are the formless baked-earth walls of the 10th-century citadel, which once boasted seven gates and 6km of fortifications. Earlier this had been the site of Alexander the Great’s original settlement. The fort was the scene of pitched battles in 1997 between rebel Uzbek warlords and government troops, during which 300 people were killed. The main section remains occupied by the army but much of the eastern wall has been rebuilt creating an impressive, if one-photo scene, when viewed from the southeast corner. That's where the rebuilt bastion now contains a museum , lavished with colourful stone mosaics and partly 3D murals though it contains little in the way of historical artefacts. A much more modest one-room archaeological museum inside the central section of the rebuilt wall has a few old plans of the original citadel and allows access to a section of battlements.
