Introduction Topic: Tourism resources of Bukhara Chapter. I. Why should we go to Bukhara?

The Kal yan minaret: around a thousand years old!

Local legend has it (exclusive! As told by our guide; no mention of this on Wikipedia!) that when Genghis Khan’s troops seized and were destroying the city, Kalyan was left untouched, Why? Well, approaching the minaret, Genghis Khan pulled up on his horse and his hat fell down to the ground. As he picked it up, he unintentionally knelt. To which he remarked that, since it had been knelt before, the minaret must stay!

Hmmm, like the minaret, that story is a bit tall. Would the Mongolian ruler really have dismounted his horse to pick up his hat from the ground himself? Maybe. Who knows?!
Here’s something I didn’t know. It turns out the word minaret is Arabic for lighthouse! Apparently, before Islam, that is what they were used as in the desert. Up top of a night fires would be lit and strings of them would be used by caravans to find their way along their routes. And those caravans would move along their routes only at night, since by day it was (and still is!) too hot. That, btw, is another legend; I notice no mention on Wikipedia.
We continue our stroll around the old town:

The Ark of Bukhara, the fortress once inhabited by various royal courts :

It once f eatured a jail:


The coron ation square:


Another prison (zindan):


In the prison, suddenly, a… bug pit!



Prisoners would be put in the bug pit – and never came out again. Relatives would drop them food down on string.


The bug pit put up foreign guests in its time. For example, the British envoy who arrived at the fortress to see the emir, (i) on a horse, and (ii) without a gift. Not the best combination. He sat in the bug pit a full four years, before being beheaded – along with the British spy who tried to rescue him during the Great Game. Just goes to show: always take into account local cultural differences in customs an d traditions – and respe ct them :).