Ark of Bukhara

The royal citadel of Bukhara — an 18-hectare elevated fortress that served as the Emirs' palace from the 5th century until 1920.

The Ark is the oldest structure in Bukhara — a massive elevated mud-brick fortress that served as the residence of the Bukhara emirs from the 5th century until the Soviet conquest of 1920. The current walls, 16–20 metres high and 800 metres in perimeter, sit on the accumulated debris of fifty earlier fortifications, raising the citadel about 20 metres above the surrounding city. Inside the walls (only about 20% of the original buildings survived the 1920 Red Army bombing) are the throne room where Emir Alim Khan held court, the Friday Mosque, the coronation court (where ‘kok-tash’ the green-marble coronation stone still stands), the royal stables, the mint, the dungeon (where the British officers Stoddart and Conolly were held in 1842 during the Great Game), and a small archaeological museum. The Ark’s most photogenic feature is its sloped western wall, draped with a ‘curtain’ of mud-brick buttresses that gives the whole fortress its signature wave-like profile.