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Amir Timur Museum
Housed inside the renovated Chubin Medressa is this simple museum. Its highlight is a model depicting Timur’s entire kingdom, from Egypt to Kashgar. Beyond the boundaries of the kingdom, a yellow line illustrates his ‘protectorates’, including Kiev and Moscow. If that doesn’t inter
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Museum of Applied Arts
The Museum of Applied Arts occupies an exquisite house full of bright ghanch and carved wood. It was built in the 1930s, at the height of the Soviet period, but nonetheless serves as a sneak preview of the older architectural highlights lurking in Bukhara and Samarkand. The ceramic
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Peoples Friendship Palace
Downtown Tashkents largest park, sprawling southward from Halqlar Dustligi metro, is a haven for joggers, Sunday strollers, and appreciators of Uzbek eccentricity. Soviet architects had a field day in Navoi Park, erecting a pod of spectacularly hideous concrete monstrosities, the m
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Nadir Divanbegi Khanaka
On the west side of the square, and built at the same time, is the Nadir Divanbegi Khanaka, a sufi cloister used for religious ceremonies, debates and instruction. Both this and the medressa opposite are named for Abdul Aziz Khan’s treasury minister, who financed them in the 17th c
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Covered Bazaars
From Shaybanid times, the area west and north from Lyabi-Hauz was a vast warren of market lanes, arcades and crossroad minibazaars whose multidomed roofs were designed to draw in cool air. Three remaining domed bazaars, heavily renovated in Soviet times, were among dozens of specia
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Jami Mosque Museum
Kokand’s most impressive mosque, built by Umar Khan in 1812, is centred on a 22m minaret and includes a colourful 100m-long aivan (portico) supported by 98 red-wood columns brought from India. The entire complex has reverted to its former Soviet guise as a museum, with one room hou
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Ulugbek’s Observatory
The remains of Ulugbek’s Observatory is one of the great archaeological finds of the 20th century. Ulugbek was probably more famous as an astronomer than as a ruler. His 30m astrolab, designed to observe star positions, was part of a three-storey observatory he built in the 1420s.
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Dorut Tilyovat
Behind Kok-Gumbaz is Dorut Tilyovat, the original burial complex of Timur’s forebears. Under the dome on the left is the Mausoleum of Sheikh Shamseddin Kulyal , spiritual tutor to Timur and his father, Amir Taragay (who might also be buried here). The mausoleum was completed by Tim
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Hazrat
Across the intersection from the Siob Bazaar, the Hazrat-Hizr Mosque occupies a hill on the fringes of Afrosiab. The 8th-century mosque that once stood here was burnt to the ground by Chinggis Khan in the 13th century and was not rebuilt until 1854. In the 1990s it was lovingly res
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Zindon
Behind the Ark is Zindon, the jail, now euphemistically called the Museum of Law & Legislation . Cheerful attractions include a torture chamber, shackles used on prisoners and several dungeons, including the gruesome fourth cell, the 6.5m deep kanakhona (bug pit), where Stoddar
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Yodgorlik Silk Factory
Margilons main attraction is this fascinating factory, which can be explored on a tour where you’ll witness traditional methods of silk production from steaming and unravelling the cocoons to the weaving of the dazzling khanatlas (hand-woven silk, patterned on one side) fabrics for
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Tomb of the Old Testament Prophet Daniel
The restored Tomb of the Old Testament Prophet Daniel lies on the banks of the Siob River (turn left off Toshkent yoli 400m northeast of the Afrosiab Museum). The building is a long, low structure topped with five domes, containing an 18m sarcophagus – legend has it that Daniel’s b
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Turki Jandi Mausoleum
Deep in the old town is the tiny, decrepit Turki Jandi mausoleum, favoured for getting one’s prayers answered. Its importance is signalled by the hundreds of other graves around it – allegedly in stacks 30m deep! Turki Jandi’s tomb is accessed through the mosque under the taller, s
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Mohammed Rakhim Khan Medressa
East of the Kuhna Ark, across an open space that was once a busy palace square (and place of execution), the 19th-century Mohammed Rakhim Khan Medressa is named after the khan who surrendered to Russia in 1873 (although he had, at least, kept Khiva independent a few years longer th
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Juma Mosque
Continuing east from the Sayid Alauddin Mausoleum, the large Juma Mosque is interesting for the 218 wooden columns supporting its roof – a concept thought to be derived from ancient Arabian mosques. Six or seven of the columns date from the original 10th-century mosque (see if you
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Moyie Mubarek Library Museum
The primary attraction of the Khast Imom square is this library museum, which houses the 7th-century Osman Quran (Uthman Quran), said to be the world’s oldest. This enormous deerskin tome was brought to Samarkand by Timur, then taken to Moscow by the Russians in 1868 before being r
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Lyabi
Lyabi-Hauz, a plaza built around a pool in 1620 (the name is Tajik for ‘around the pool’), is the most peaceful and interesting spot in town – shaded by mulberry trees as old as the pool. The old tea-sipping, chessboard-clutching Uzbek men who once inhabited this corner of town hav
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Termiz Archaeological Museum
The Termiz Archaeological Museum is reason enough to visit Termiz. Unveiled in 2001, the museum is a treasure trove of artefacts collected from the many ravaged civilisations that pepper the Surkhandarya province of which Termiz is the main city. The highlight would have to be the
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Fine Arts Museum of Uzbekistan
The four floors of the Fine Arts Museum of Uzbekistan walk you through 1500 years of art in Uzbekistan, from 7th-century Buddhist relics, to the art of pre-Russian Turkestan, to Soviet realism, to contemporary works. There are displays of East Asian and South Asian art and even a f
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Mir
Opposite the Kalon mosque, its luminous blue domes in sharp contrast to the surrounding brown, is the working Mir-i-Arab Medressa. Especially at sunset, it’s among Uzbekistan’s most striking medressas. Mir-i-Arab was a 16th-century Naqshbandi sheikh from Yemen who had a strong infl
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