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Afrosiab Museum
The Afrosiab Museum was built around one of Samarkand’s more important archaeological finds, a chipped 7th-century fresco of the Sogdian King Varkhouman receiving ranks of foreign dignitaries astride ranks of elephants, camels and horses. You’ll see reproductions of this iconic fre
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Ismail Samani Mausoleum
This mausoleum in Samani Park, completed in 905, is the towns oldest Muslim monument and probably its sturdiest architecturally. Built for Ismail Samani (the Samanid dynastys founder), his father and grandson, its intricate baked terracotta brickwork – which gradually changes perso
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Tosh
This palace, which means ‘Stone House’, contains Khiva’s most sumptuous interior decoration, including ceramic tiles, carved stone and wood, and ghanch . Built by Allakuli Khan between 1832 and 1841 as a more splendid alternative to the Kuhna Ark, it’s said to have more than 150 ro
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Abdul Aziz Khan Medressa
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 namesake to outdo the Ulugbek Medressa, across the street. The highlight is the prayer room, now a museum of wood carvings , wit
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Sheikhantaur Mausoleum Complex
Across Navoi from the Navoi Literary Museum are three 15th-century mausoleums. The biggest, on the grounds of the Tashkent Islamic University, bears the name of Yunus Khan , grandfather of the Mughal emperor and Andijon native Babur. The mausoleum itself sits locked and idle, but y
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Babur Literary Museum
This museum occupies the site of the royal apartments where Zahiruddin Babur lived and studied as a boy within Ark-Ichy, the town’s long-gone citadel. Born in 1483 in Andijon to Fergana’s ruler, Umar Sheikh Mirzo (a descendant of Timur), Babur inherited his father’s kingdom before
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History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan
The History Museum of the People of Uzbekistan is a must-stop for anyone looking for a primer on the history of Turkestan from ancient times to the present. The 2nd floor has Zoroastrian and Buddhist artefacts, including several 1st- to 4th-century Buddhas and Buddha fragments from
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Pahlavon Mahmud Mausoleum
This revered mausoleum, with its sublime courtyard and stately tilework, is one of the town’s most beautiful spots. Pahlavon Mahmud was a poet, philosopher and legendary wrestler who became Khiva’s patron saint. His 1326 tomb was rebuilt in the 19th century and then requisitioned i
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Bukhara
Central Asias holiest city, Bukhara (on road signs youll see the Latinised Uzbek word Buxoro, pronounced Buhoro) has buildings spanning a thousand years of history, and a thoroughly lived-in old centre that probably hasnt changed much in two centuries. It is one of the best places
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International Museum of Peace and Solidarity
The quirky International Museum of Peace and Solidarity used to occupy a building in central Navoi Park, but the building was demolished in 2006 to pave the way for park renovations. The museum should have a new home by the time you read this. Curator Anatoly Ionesov has a remarkab
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Isfandiyar Palace
The Isfandiyar Palace (also called the Palace of Narallabay) was built between 1906 and 1912, and like the Emir’s Summer Palace in Bukhara displays some fascinatingly overdone decorations in a messy collision of East and West. Despite being located just outside the walls of the Ich
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Mausoleum of Al
Closer to town is a slightly younger but still quite sacred edifice, the Mausoleum of Al-Hakim al-Termizi. Its namesake was a 9th-century Sufi philosopher, known locally as Al-Hakim, the city’s patron saint. In a triumph for preservationists, the interior’s cheap plaster ghanch -wo
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Moynaq
Once one of the Aral Seas two major fishing ports, Moynaq now stands almost 150km (93mi) from the water. What remains of Moynaqs fishing fleet lies rusting on the sand, beside depressions marking the towns last futile efforts in the early 1980s to keep channels open to the shore. P
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Ichon
You are free to walk around the Ichon-Qala without a ticket, you just won’t be able to access (or, technically, to photograph) any sights. The North , East and South Gates are known as, respectively, the Bogcha-Darvoza (Garden Gate), Polvon-Darvoza (Strongman’s Gate) and Tosh-Darvo
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Fayzulla Khojaev House
The Fayzulla Khojaev House was once home to one of Bukhara’s many infamous personalities, the man who plotted with the Bolsheviks to dump Emir Alim Khan. Fayzulla Khojaev was rewarded with the presidency of the Bukhara People’s Republic, chairmanship of the Council of People’s Comm
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Ulugbek Medressa
Ulugbek Medressa on the west side is the original medressa, finished in 1420 under Ulugbek (who is said to have taught mathematics there; other subjects included theology, astronomy and philosophy). Beneath the little corner domes were lecture halls, and at the rear a large mosque.
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Islom
Walk south from the Abdulla Khan Medressa to the Islom-Hoja Medressa and minaret – Khiva’s newest Islamic monuments, both built in 1910. You can climb the minaret . With bands of turquoise and red tiling, it looks rather like an uncommonly lovely lighthouse. At 57m tall, it’s Uzbek
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Kumtepa Bazaar
A much less sanitised experience than the Silk Factory is Margilon’s fantastic Kumtepa Bazaar, 5km west of the centre. It’s a time capsule full of weathered Uzbek men in traditional clothing exchanging solemn greetings and gossiping over endless pots of tea, with hardly a Russian o
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Khazrati
A walkway leads east from Kok-Gumbaz to a few melancholy remnants of a 3500-sq-metre mausoleum complex called Dorussiadat or Dorussaodat (Seat of Power and Might), which Timur finished in 1392 and which may have overshadowed even the Ak-Saray Palace. The main survivor is the tall,
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Kalon 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 fo
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