Samanids Mausoleum, First destination

 Hi, everybody!👋

Welcome to my blog🤗

I will share information on my impressions and experiences about our trip around Bukhara.

We started our initial lessons which is part of our qualificational practice and had an amazing travel to historical sights. The first destination had been Samanids Mausoleum.

Muborak Azimova gave informative speech and told about its architecture and constructional history. 

About the monument☝️

Of all the medieval buildings in Bukhara, the Samanids Mausoleum is of special interest. This world-famous architectural masterpiece was built at the close of the ninth century. The mausoleum was erected as a family crypt immediately after the death of Ismail Samani's father. Later, Ismail himself and his grandson Nasr were also buried in it. It is interesting to note that erecting crypts was against Islamic law at that time, for Islam forbade erecting any post-mortem monuments upon the tombs of Muslim believers. However, the prohibition was broken in the middle of the ninth century by one of the caliphs himself, for whom a special as-Suli-biya Mausoleum was built. Ismail merely followed his example.

Not only Muborak but also Nigina Juraboyeva told us about interesting facts of Ismail Samani Mausoleum. For example, monument changes its colour and the  shape of patterns. The most interesting thing that there is a legend about believing in justice of Ismail Samani. It is believed that you can leave a letter there and your complain will be completed if you are pure and innocent.

Architecture and design

Overall, the building is constructed in a form of a small, slightly tapering cube, with each side approximately 9.4 m long. There are four identically designed facades which gently slope inwards with increasing height. Wall thickness of approximately 1.8 m at the base of the building assured structural solidity and survival through the ages. Each side has an entrance portal adorned with pointed arches. Many researches note well-studied, almost mathematical, proportions of the building and its harmonious hierarchy. The base of the building is heavy which is accentuated by a wider foundation; four heavy built in three-quarter corner columns, classical in design, contribute to its fortress-like appearance. The top of the building is lightened up through an elegant arcade gallery, placed below the cornice, that have many arched openings to reduce overall weight and to let light inside the building (in contrast, most of chahar taq structures had no windows). A large semi-circular Dome, about 7 meters in diameter crowns the structure and it is similar to the Buddhist domes in the area. Four mini domes placed in the corners of the roof are more decorative in nature. Overall, the mausoleum's builders achieved an elegant hierarchy of diminishing proportions and vertical perspective through the diminishing size of the domes (one large and four small), columns (placed in the corners, portals and gallery) and arches (portals and gallery). Typical for Islamic architecture in general, there is an overlap and ambiguity between the structural and decorative features within the building – bricks being structure and decoration, both equally important.

During the trip we took so wonderful pictures in order not to forget these entertaining days.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot and had great impressions. Keep on following my blog and I will share new and new experiences every day.

Here you can watch video of our trip🤗

Keep following, dears🤝❤️