If you want to travel to ancient touristic cities of Uzbekistan, you have not too many options: Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva are the most prominent of them. Bukhara leaves an ambiguous impression. While Samarkand feels the most modern of them and Khiva the most authentic one, Bukhara is something in between. It has an interesting compact city center which is restored (but to be honest it seems to be more rebuilt from scratch than restored) as it looked several centuries ago. It has both religious and secular buildings.
Rooted deeply in history Bukhara offers you a variety of sights, most of which are located in its historic center. There is a central square with several mosques and madrasas and the magnificent Kalon minaret. That is one of a few places in the city which is beautifully led at night. There are three other spectacular building right in the center that are not of any religious purpose: an ancient bazaar, a fortress (Arc) and a prison (zindan).
In other districts have their own attractions. The most prominent are Sitorai-Mokhi-Khosa palace (where emirs of Bukhara resided) with numerous peacocks walking in its yard, Fayzulla Khodjaev Museum (a big house of a Bukhara merchant who survived and kept his house after the 1917 revolution because he joined bolsheviks just in time) and Ismail Samani Mausoleum (the grave and the mausoleum of a famous Samanid rulers who had his capital in Bukhara and managed to conquest a lot of lands).
Out of the touristic center there’s a city that is growing extremely fast. Districts being traditional mahallyas (neighborhoods) just recently are full of appearing multistorey residential houses. Modern buildings of airport and railroad station, shopping malls, business centers… and still a lot of small houses with spacious yards, people in traditional clothes. that is Bukhara, a mixture of old and new.
Bukhara is located in an oasis in the middle of a desert, so it has a very hot and dry climate. Near the city there’s a sanctuary of several local species, where they can live in the desert. They are goitered gazelle, Przewalski’s horse, argali and several other species as well as local inhabitants like spiders, poisonous snakes, jackals and dipodidaes. The sanctuary is worth visiting if you are a fan of deserts and their flora and fauna. The landscape has a couple of salt lakes having some population of wild birds including swans.
Goitered gazelle
