Registan Square

The name means “sandy place”, and for centuries this was simply Samarkand’s main square: a market, a parade ground and the spot where royal decrees were read and executions carried out. What turned it into the most photographed square in Central Asia was a sequence of three madrasahs, built by two different dynasties more than two centuries apart, that face one another on three sides of the open space.

Three buildings, two eras

• Ulugbek Madrasah (1417–1420), on the west side, came first. Timur’s grandson Ulugbek, ruler of Samarkand and a serious astronomer, made it one of the leading universities of the Islamic world, where mathematics and astronomy were taught alongside theology. Its portal is covered in star-shaped geometric mosaic.
• Sher-Dor Madrasah (1619–1636) was built opposite it by Yalangtush Bahadur, governor of Samarkand under the Ashtarkhanid khans, deliberately mirroring the older facade. Its portal carries the square’s most famous image: two striped big cats chasing white deer beneath suns with human faces, a bold departure from the usual ban on living figures.
• Tilya-Kori Madrasah (1646–1660), closing the north side, doubled as the city’s Friday mosque. “Tilya-Kori” means “gilded”, and the prayer hall lives up to it: its walls and flat-looking dome are covered in gold-leaf painting, restored in the twentieth century.

What to look for

Look at the minarets of the Ulugbek Madrasah: centuries of earthquakes tilted them, and one was famously straightened by Soviet engineers in the 1930s; a slight lean is still visible. Inside the courtyards, the former student cells now hold craft shops: suzani embroidery, ceramics, miniature painting and musical instruments. Look up at the tile panels, too: the earlier Timurid work uses fine cut-tile mosaic, while the seventeenth-century buildings rely more on painted glazed tiles.

When to come

The square faces east and west, so light changes the mood through the day. Early morning, just after opening, is the quietest time to walk the courtyards. Late afternoon puts warm light on the Ulugbek and Sher-Dor portals, and after dark the three buildings are floodlit; on many evenings a sound-and-light show is projected onto the facades. The square can be seen from the viewing area outside without a ticket; the ticket gives access to the square itself and the madrasah courtyards.