Bukhara is, in the eyes of many, the undisputed pearl, or perhaps the sapphire, given that its dominant colour is blue, of Uzbekistan. While Samarkand and Khiva have their charms, they seem but pale mirages when one stands on a late autumnal afternoon beneath the Kalyon Minar, the most prominent sight on the city’s skyline, beside the vast and sumptuous 16th-century Kalyon Mosque. Visitors come to Bukhara Province for Bukhara itself, whether drawn to the Ark (the city’s medieval mud-brick citadel with its grisly Registan and prison) or to the buildings of Lyabi Hauz reflected in the gently shifting waters of the tank. Everything is a treat for the eyes, and many spend their entire stay wandering the labyrinthine streets of the Old Town, savouring each sight, sound and smell.
Those who venture further afield are rewarded too. The Mausoleum of Bakhauddin Naqshbandi, outside the modern city’s confines, is considered among the holiest sites in central Asia, drawing huge numbers of pilgrims and admirers of the mazar. Nearby lies the Sitorai Mokhi Khosa, the summer palace of Alim Khan, offering a poignant insight into the last days of the Bukharan emirate before the Bolsheviks took control, as well as the town of Gijduvan, famous for its finely painted handmade ceramics.
The city’s founding is cloaked in mystery, its creation myths as elaborate as the façade of Lyabi Hauz. The Persian epic, the Shahnama, tells that Bukhara was founded by Siyavush, a prince of the Pishdadian dynasty. Falsely accused by his stepmother of seducing her, he survived a trial by fire, crossed the Amu Darya, and wed the princess Farangis, daughter of King Afrosiab of Samarkand, receiving the vassal state of Bukhara as her dowry. Later accused of plotting against Afrosiab, Siyavush was executed before Farangis, his head buried beneath the Ark’s Kalyon Gate as a permanent reminder to the citadel’s residents not to threaten Samarkand’s sovereignty.
Situated near a crucial crossing of the Amu Darya between Merv, Herat and Samarkand, Bukhara was ideally placed to profit from Silk Road trade. It was flourishing by the 6th century BC when sacked by the Achaemenids, becoming a satrapy of the Persian Empire. Its wealth attracted Alexander the Great in 329 BC, followed by the Seleucids, Graeco-Bactrians and Kushans. The city became a centre of worship for the Iranian goddess Anahita and offered refuge to Nestorian Christians and Manicheans persecuted elsewhere. When Arab invaders came in the 7th century, residents initially paid annual tribute, but after 80 kidnapped Bukharans committed mass suicide en route to Medina, Qutaiba ibn Muslim arrived in AD 709 and violently imposed direct control. The city’s celebrated religious diversity was quashed, and as capital of the Samanid dynasty (819 to 1005) it became known as Bukhoro-i Sharif (Bukhara the Noble) and “The Pillar of Islam.”
The 9th and 10th centuries were a golden age. The Samanid ruler Ismail ibn Ahmad moved the capital of Maveranahr here from Samarkand in AD 892, and his patronage nurtured some of the Islamic world’s greatest minds. The physician and philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna), the Persian poets Ferdowsi and Rudaki, and the chronicler al Beruni all completed major works in the city. The Samanid fall brought 200 years of attacks: the Karakhanids (AD 999), the Karakhitai (1141) and the Khorezmshah (1206). Most catastrophic was Genghis Khan, whose Mongol horde arrived in 1220, slaughtering all 30,000 troops, torching the city, and killing or enslaving the civilian population. The Great Khan proclaimed himself the “Scourge of God” in the Namazgokh Mosque. When Ibn Battuta visited nearly 150 years later, the city still lay largely in ruins.
Recovery came under the Shaybanids, an Uzbek tribe who established a khanate in 1500. Abdullah Khan II (who ruled from 1583 to 1598) united the Uzbek clans against the Shi’ite Safavids, and artisans captured from Herat were set to rebuilding Bukhara. The city again became a regional religious centre, boasting some 150 madrasas and nearly 300 mosques. In 1747 the Mangit dynasty took power, styling themselves emirs from 1785 to stress their religious credentials. Yet the city struggled economically as maritime routes bypassed central Asia, and its rulers grew notorious for barbarism. Most infamous was “the Butcher” Nasrullah Khan, who murdered 31 relatives to seize the throne in 1826 and was responsible for imprisoning and executing the British officers Conolly and Stoddart during an era of visiting European spies such as Alexander “Bukhara” Burnes.
Following Russian military victories in 1866 and 1868, the emirate became a nominally independent Russian protectorate, and the Trans-Caspian railway linked the city to Russia in 1888. The emirate ended with the Bolshevik Revolution. After Alim Khan orchestrated the massacre of the emissary Kolesov’s detachment and Bolshevik spies, General Mikhail Frunze marched in during 1920, fighting for four days until the Bolshevik flag flew from the Kalyon Minar and the emir fled to Afghanistan. The Bukhara People’s Republic joined the Uzbek SSR in 1924, and the city’s transformation from religious centre to museum city began. Mosques became offices, madrasas became stables, and the population halved between 1917 and 1926. The city was left to decay until the 1950s, when its walls were demolished and boulevards driven through the alleys. However, because most buildings were abandoned rather than destroyed, later restorers were left with ample original material to work with.