Dedicated to the memory of our mentor Saburdzhana Yusupov, who with his interesting stories and tales taught us to love the motherland, native nature, our favorite city Khiva

"New-method school" of Islam Khodja

In this school, built by the vizier Islam Khoja Khan, children of the age 7-8 were taken to study at any time of year. The school program was different, the student attending school began to study with the Arabic alphabet, which was inflicted by the imam on board "cara tahta" , brought by a student himself. The students, who memorized the letters, were allowed to begin reading "abzhad" (the code name of eight artificial words composed in the manner of the ancient Arabic alphabet, the first of which is "abzhad"). After studying "abzhad”, children started to read the book "Haftiyak" (selected passages from the Koran). It was very difficult, because the children had to memorize them, it took at least 2-3 years. After "Haftiyak" they proceeded the book "Chor kitob" (4 books) where they studied:

1) "-Hak" (true, right - one of the names of Allah), that Allah is one, the rules of the religion, the five obligatory religious prescriptions (Fard) of Islam for Muslims.
2) "-Bidan" - clarification of the Imam.
3) "-Kalik nabi" - the belief in tradition.
4) "-Hamdihat" - recognition of the greatness of Allah.
After studying these subjects, they started to read the book "The Sufi Allah Yar," it also took 2 - 3 years. After that, they studied the book of Wali Sheikh Attar "Logic", then reading widespread in Central Asia divans (poetry collections) of Khodja Hafiz, Bedil, Fizuli- were part of the training program. In these schools, the process of learning to read and write was established for 7-8 years, and then the students received primary education and returned to their parents. A relatively smaller proportion of students continue their education in madrasahs.
The building of new-method school is located opposite the madrasahs built by Islam Khodja in 1910. Prior to the opening of this school Rahimkhan Mohammed II Feruz, to prepare educated people of the children of the local population, at his palace opened a school. The school opened in 1884, Russian teacher and talented masters of educational formation as Mirza Rahmankulov were engaged in training and education of children. In 1887, this school taught 11 students, six of them were educated at the expense of funds allocated by khan Feruz. Russian artist LE Dmitriev-Caucazskiy visited the school, in his memoirs gave the following information: - "We have opened one of the doors, and went straight into the classroom, it was almost empty a large geographical map hung on the wall, on the shelves there was a certain number of books. There were plain simple table, on it inkwell, two benches. All equipment of class consisted of those things. A teacher conducts lessons in another room. There also was not almost any conditions, there was only kurpacha (cotton bedding) on the floor. In the courtyard I saw children (aged from 11 to 15) and the other muslim teacher. "
In addition to the school, according to the decree of Feruz on November 10, 1904, in the city of Urgench, the first new-method school was opened. There was a teacher by the name Hussein Kushaev, originally from Turkey, who started training and education of children. The interest among the local population to this school was high. On December of the same year, there were 45 students at the school, who were children of local nationality. Hussein Kushaev, taking into account the wishes of the progressive people of the Khanate, supporters of education, and first of all the desire of parents, in the 1906 - 1907 academic year, organized the school for girls in Urgench. Delighted by this important event, the Khan of Khiva Feruz went to Urgench and familiarized himself with the affairs of the school, and supported Hussein Kushaev in initiated by him innovation, gave him sarpo (clothing from head to toe) and decided to provide assistance to school at the expense of the khan's treasury. At the beginning, at this school Kushaeva Camila, the wife of Hussein Kushaev, tought girls. Kamil Khorezmi took the initiative in the opening of such school in Khiva in Russian. He, along with Feruz and such advanced people, supporters of education as a Hudaibergen Divanov, Sayyid Islam Khodja, traveled to cities of Russia, got acquainted with the techniques of educational work of these places. In 1891, the press called "Newspaper of Turkestan" in its №35 edition, 1891, gave the following message about the school "... In Khiva state, wishing to learn the language of Rusi, schools are opening where the language of Rusii is taught, and the space with the cost of study is provided for 10 children. In April of this year, Nazir (Inspector) of all madrasahs and schools of Turkestan (Russian-language schools) ... went to Khiva ...to get acquainted with the school ... Khan asked him to send to Khiva one Russian Domla (teacher). For this reason, for teaching the Rusii language and arithmetic, muslim kazakh Hussein Ibrahim oglu was appointed as a school teacher, who studied very well in the Teacher's seminary in Tashkent. "
Feruz sent Kamil Khwarizmi to trip to Tashkent to study the methods of teaching in the public schools. Kamil Khorezmi visited high schools of Tashkent, spoke to teachers and teachers of these schools. Poet impressions about this he stated in the poem, written in Persian, entitled "The Gift baeni tarif tavsifi Toshkand " ("The story of the description and characterization of Tashkent"), or "Kasidai Navruz" ("Ode to Navruz"). At the time, in these verses, published in the "Newspaper of Turkestan", there were described impressions of the trip to Tashkent. Kamil Khorezmi got familiar with lithographic printing, theaters, hospitals, newspapers, after the return to Khiva, he appealed to khan Feruz to take steps for the development of these sectors in Khiva. His work was supported by the khan Feruz and Russian new-method schools started to be improved even more. The main goal of the Russian school in Khiva was to educate the children of the local ethnic Russian languafe, train them to be interpreters. Because in the Khanate there were difficulties in the sphere of conduction of work management in Russian, reading incoming messages and letters and their translation, writing letters, nad owing to this Feruz Khan took that school under his own complete protection. In Russian school, in addition to subjects such as Russian language, mathematics, history, geography, natural science, there also were local literacy (mother tongue) and the initial foundations of Islam. In addition to poetry, short stories and fables of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Krylov there were given lessons on the works of such poets like Navoi, Fuzuli, Bedil, Sadi Shirazi, Mashrab, Sufi Allah Yar.
"New-method school" of Islam Khodja was two-stored. It contained methods of construction of the European architecture. The total length of the school building is 21.07 meters, it consists of eight rooms and two corridors. At the school the children of khan’s family and khan’s courtiers were taught. During study at school on the basis of a two-year program interpreters were prepared. The first teachers of the school were Hussein Kushaev and Kamil Kushaeva. According to the programprepared by them, training was carried out in such subjects as Russian language, the native (Uzbek) language, geography, history of Khiva and duties as a domestic servant. After the abdication of the throne of the Khan and the establishment of people's power in Khorezm, on February 2, 1920, this school has been transformed into one of the first Soviet schools, where the teaching staff was preparing.
On August 18, 1990 in the building of Russian new-method school the museum of "History of Public Education of Khorezm" was opened. In 2004, there were carried out restoration works on the first floor of the school building, on the occasion of 13th anniversary of independence of our republic, the exposition of stationary exhibition was opened, dedicated to the life and work of the first Khorezm photographer and pioneer of Uzbek cinema Khudaibergen Divanov.