The road from the Registan to the Kalyan minaret was
called Ulitsa Kommunarov by the Soviets; its north side is now being rebuilt
as a tourists' bazaar. No-one is allowed to re-name or rebuild the minaret
(though its nick-name is the Tower of Death) because it is on the UNESCO
world heritage list.
There is trial and error behind its longevity. The first
minaret here was wood-framed, and burned down. The second, built early
in the Karakhanid Arslan Khan's reign, was of 
brick
but after 'someone bewitched it with an evil eye' it fell on and largely
demolished the adjacent mosque. Second time round Arslan Khan took no chances.
His surviving colossus is nearly 14 m wide at the bottom and has cubic
foundations 10 m deep. At 47 m high, it was probably the tallest building
in the world when completed in 1127. The idea may have been for its 16-arched
brick lantern, from which the people were called to prayer, to be on a
level with Samarkand 250 km away. It was certainly used as a lighthouse
for caravans travelling at night-a fire would be lit in the lantern-and
can still be seen from
miles out on the flat approaches to Bukhara.
There are 14 bands of kufic calligraphy round its tapering
neck (one names the architect as 'Bako'), interspersed with as many bands
of decorative brickwork, all of them different. The turquoise 'necklace'
at the top is the first use of glazed tiles in Central Asia.
When Genghis Khan spared this building he was probably
as impressed by its punitive potential as its height. He and subsequent
khans threw people off it, faithless wives as well as common criminals,
hence the name 'Tower of Death'. The official Soviet guide-book dates the
last death by jaculation 1884, but escaped Austrian POW Gustav Krist
claimed the tower still served this purpose in the 1920s. Tourists are
not allowed up it. Nor was anyone else in pre-Soviet times, except the
khan; it was too good a vantage point for spying on womens' balconies.
[back]
