Ark Fortress

The Ark is Bukhara's oldest inhabited site and the seat of its power for most of recorded history. By about 500 AD local rulers were already living on this artificial mound, which rests on some twenty metres of earlier fortresses, each built on the ruins of the one before. Its walls, 16 to 20 metres high and nearly 800 metres around, enclose almost four hectares; inside, until 1920, lived the emir, his ministers, his treasury, his prisoners and hundreds of servants.

Legend and history

Legend gives the fortress a heroic founder, Siyavush of the Persian epic Shahnameh, who was promised a princess if he could build a palace on ground covered by a single bull's hide. He cut the hide into a thin strip and enclosed a whole hilltop with it. The 10th-century historian Narshakhi records a later tale: the fortress kept collapsing until the ruler's astrologers had it laid out on seven points matching the stars of the Great Bear. Tradition also places here the famous Samanid library in which the young Ibn Sina said he found books he had never seen before.

The Mongols sacked the Ark in 1220, and later dynasties rebuilt it many times. Most of what stands today dates from the 17th to the early 20th century. In September 1920 the Red Army under Mikhail Frunze bombarded the citadel; the last emir, Alim Khan, fled, and much of the interior burned. Large parts of the fortress have never been rebuilt, which is why the walls seem to hold more empty space than buildings.

What you see inside

A long ramp climbs between two 18th-century towers to the gate, then a dark covered passage leads past old storerooms and cells into the fortress. Inside are the Friday mosque of the Ark, with a painted wooden porch; the reception and coronation court, where the emirs were enthroned and received ambassadors from a raised throne platform; the former quarters of the chief minister; and several museum halls covering archaeology, coins, manuscripts and the history of the emirate. From the upper terraces the view takes in the whole old town, from the Kalyan Minaret to the Bolo-Hauz Mosque.

The open ground in front of the gate, Registan square, was where emirs held public executions. It was here, in 1842, that two British officers, Charles Stoddart and Arthur Conolly, were beheaded after long imprisonment, an episode of the Great Game. The Zindan, the emir's prison, stands a short walk behind the fortress.

How to experience it

Visit in the morning or late afternoon; the walls hold the heat at midday in summer. Leave time for the terraces, then cross the road to the Bolo-Hauz Mosque.