Kalyan Minaret, Bukhara#
by members of the AirPano Team that is a member of the global-geography Consortium.
with kind permission of AirPano
The part of Silk Road and the ancient capital of khanate is Bukhara. Bukhara is one of the most picturesque and legendary cities of the world. It had been captured, destroyed many times and restored again. And behind the walls of its numerous harems no laughing south passion was burning...
Bukhara is a memorial city, museum under the sky which stopped in the past. One can get the general idea of the city if he/she goes upstairs in the Kalyan Minaret situated on the territory of the Pio-Kalyan complex. This is the most outstanding sightseeing of Bukhara in the literal and figurative senses of this word. Once upon a time the minaret served as a lighthouse for the caravans going through a desert. It has remained to this day particularly thanks to its greatness. They say that when the forces of Genghis Khan entered in the city destroying everything on their way, the great commander's cap fell when he had raised the head to look round the minaret. He said: "Such great that forced me to take off the cap!" Genghis Khan gave credit for its superiority and didn't destroy.
And there is one more remained from that time monument of Bukhara - Magoki-Attari that means Blue Mosque. Genghis Khan even didn't see it because the inhabitants of the city buried it with sand in time and unburied it only after the forces had gone.