Things to Do in Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Quick facts: Genghis Khan found the 46-meter minaret so impressive that he spared it from destruction. The complex of three buildings has defined Bukhara's cityscape for more than 800 years.

Highlights: From the top of the minaret, the muezzin's voice could be heard up to 10 kilometers away in the desert silence. The tower's brickwork features 14 different geometric decorations, each revealing itself from a different direction.

Quick facts: The walls of the fortress, spanning 3 hectares, reach 20 meters in height. The royal residence housed hundreds of rooms, from the treasury to the torture chamber.

Highlights: The chains of prisoners once rattled beneath the massive ramp leading to the entrance, where they were cast under the hooves of horses parading above their heads. The throne room ceiling was covered with gold plates, and the carpets came from every corner of the empire.

Quick facts: This star-patterned brick-clad structure is one of the oldest surviving mausoleums in the Islamic world, and the pinnacle of Central Asian brick craftsmanship. The walls of the domed building, set on a rectangular floor plan, are made of finely carved bricks both outside and inside, which seem to move as the light changes.

Highlights: The walls of the building were laid with more than 40 different brick patterns in total, some of which can only be discovered with a ladder, from up close. Standing inside the dome, the tiny gaps between the bricks let in the sunlight in such a way that the space takes on a different appearance every moment.

Quick facts: Twenty beautifully carved wooden pillars support the roof structure of the porch in front of the mosque, each decorated with unique motifs. The pond before it, the hauz, has been cooling the air and reflecting the mosque's stunning facade for centuries.

Highlights: It was the site of the emirs' Friday prayers, where the rulers and their entourage sat among the massive wooden pillars. The porch ceiling is covered with meticulously crafted geometric patterns and vibrant colors, perfected by generations of Central Asian craftsmen.

Quick facts: Each of its four blue-domed towers received a different decoration; no two are alike. The building was actually the entrance gate of a former madrasa, while the school building itself disappeared long ago.

Highlights: If you look closely at the towers, you will notice that each was made with different geometric patterns and tile painting, as if the builder had employed four different craftsmen. According to locals, each tower symbolizes a religion of one of the four cardinal directions, although there is no written evidence of this.

Quick facts: The 12th-century building was once a Zoroastrian temple, then a synagogue, before becoming a mosque. Its name means "the mosque of the pit," as its entrance lies more than 4 meters below today's street level.

Highlights: The brickwork pattern decorating the southwestern facade of the mosque is so meticulously crafted that not a single layer of mortar is visible between the 800-year-old clay bricks. Pagan fertility symbols and a huge 4-meter bovine skeleton unearthed in the 10-meter-deep excavation below the entrance testify to the building's thousands of years of sacred history.

Quick facts: Ulugbek, the famous astronomer-ruler, had this madrasa built in 1417, making it one of the most prominent scientific centers of medieval Central Asia. The star patterns decorating the entrance arch precisely reflect the builder's passion for astronomy, and standing under the 12-meter-high arch of the gate, one can almost feel a time travel to the golden age of the Timurid Empire.

Highlights: An inscription once adorned the facade of the madrasa, now illegible, proclaiming: "The pursuit of knowledge is the duty of every Muslim man and woman." Ulugbek personally taught astronomy and mathematics here, which was almost unprecedented for a ruler of the era.