Uzbekistan is the country with open arms that always welcomes its guests with smile and warm spirit. In this section guests of our sunny soil will have an opportunity to virtually trip along historical and wonderful cities of Uzbekistan.
The zindan or city jail, epicentre of Bukharan 19th century notoriety, lurks hidden behind the Ark, next to the former Shakhristan Gate. The heavy, sombre building was home to debtors, murderers, political prisoners, courtiers fallen from grace and 19th century European guests all held in three diabolical cells, the most infamous of which was the Black Hole—a deep pit covered with an iron grill, accessible only via a long six metre rope—the true horror of which can only truly be appreciated from the bottom. The English missionary Henry Landsell was given a guided tour of the jail by his terrified guide in 1882 and observed how the wretched prisoners, manacled and chained at the neck, went largely unfed, with those whose families were too poor to bribe the murderous jailers forced to beg for food every holy Friday through an exterior grating. Today the cells hold hostage only a few unconvincing dummies (from whose ranks Conolly and Stoddart have mysteriously disappeared) and an abridged collection of dungeon memorabilia displayed in the old torture chamber. There is a famous photograph of the bloody back of Sadreddin Ayni, future president of Tajikistan, who was publicly whipped in 1917 for his revolutionary ideas. Entry is US$1.
REGISTAN
A stranger has only to seat himself on a bench in the Registan, to know the Uzbeks and the people of Bukhara. Alexander 'Bokhara' Burnes. 1832 The leafy square lying at the foot of the Ark fortress is the Registan. This now deserted island of green was, until the Soviet era, the pulsating heart of the shakhristan, serving multiple roles as market place, Public Square and execution ground. Up until the end of the century the Registan resembled far more closely its counterpart in Samarkand. The square was enclosed to the north by the Poyenda Beg Atligh Mosque, Daru i-Shifa (House of Healing) Madrassah and clinic and to the west by the Sodhim Beg and Bazar i-Gusfand Madrassah. At the foot of the fortress walls lay the residence of the tupchi bashi, commander in chief of the emir's forces, equipped with a small arsenal and cannons captured from the rival khanate at Kokand. Spokes led out from the Registan to the four corners of the globe and a seething mass of hawkers, barbers, beggars, butchers, bakers, dervishes and courtiers thronged the bustling square. Vambery even recollects a Chinese tea merchant with a stall in the Registan who could distinguish by touch all 27 varieties of his tea. Never was the Registan more jam-packed than when the chain which normally closed the gatehouse of the Ark was withdrawn to a slow and heavy drumbeat, the signal for yet another in the macabre series of executions, floggings and torture that took place in the shadow of the Ark. Beyond the blood-stained square lay the equally nefarious slave market, where mostly Persian, but also occasional Russian, slaves were traded at dawn every Monday and Thursday. It was thus natural that the Soviets should choose this medieval bastion as the location to sweep away the old and usher in the new. In September 1920 the Red Flag was raised from the Ark and a meeting convened in the Registan to proclaim the fall of the emirate. Four years later, when news of Lenin's death filtered through to Bukhara, a mass meeting of mourning was also held here and the following year a statue of the dead revolutionary was unveiled in the heart of the square. By 1992 the fallen idol had disappeared. Nothing has since taken his place.
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