Turkestan

The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi was commissioned by Timur at the end of the fourteenth century over the grave of a Sufi teacher whose poetry shaped Turkic Islam, and it was left unfinished when Timur died, which is why the main portal still shows the wooden scaffolding sockets and unfaced brick. What was completed is monumental: a vast central hall under the largest brick dome in Central Asia, ringed by dozens of rooms, with turquoise tilework across the exterior domes. It has been a pilgrimage destination for centuries. Around it, Turkestan has been extensively rebuilt in recent years with a new tourist quarter, a caravanserai-style complex and a large open-air stage, which has transformed the city's appearance quickly.

History

Turkistan has an archaeological record going back to the 4th century, and it grew into a trading centre after the decline of nearby Otrar; known for much of the Middle Ages as Iasy or Shavgar, it takes its present name from Hazrat-i-Turkistan, the Saint of Turkistan, as Ahmad Yasawi was called. His legacy made it a centre of spiritual life and Islamic learning for the Kazakh steppe, and in the 1390s Timur raised the great domed mausoleum over his grave, which appeared on the back of Kazakhstan's banknotes until 2006; the city also keeps a medieval bathhouse and the mausoleum of Rabiya Sultan Begim, Timur's great-granddaughter, among others. Between the 16th and 18th centuries it was the capital of the Kazakh Khanate, and in 1864 Russian forces under General Veryovkin took the city, which became part of the Syr-Darya Oblast of Russian Turkestan. Local tradition holds that three visits to Turkistan equal one hajj (Wikipedia, Turkistan (city)).

What's there

• The mausoleum - the great dome, tiled exterior and the unfinished main portal.
• The cauldron - an enormous bronze vessel cast for ritual water, inside the main hall.
• The surrounding necropolis - later tombs and the archaeological zone around the complex.
• The new tourist quarter - a recently built caravanserai complex beside the old city.

When to go

Spring and autumn; summer on the steppe is very hot and winter is bitterly cold. Fridays and religious holidays bring pilgrims and a completely different atmosphere from a quiet weekday.

Practical notes

This is an active pilgrimage site as well as a monument, and parts of the interior may be in use, with dress and behaviour expectations to match. The recent development around it is extensive and modern, which some visitors find jarring next to a fourteenth-century building. The unfinished portal disappoints people expecting the polished Samarkand look.

Nearby

The ruins of Otrar are within reach; Shymkent lies south.