BUKHARA WALLS
Particularly imposing in their massiveness and elephantine appearance! The city was fortified from the outset. The Ark was a citadel surrounded by high walls, and Shakhrestan, the inner city, also had its own walls. And to protect itself from nomadic attacks, the Bukhara oasis was surrounded by a large enclosure several dozen kilometers long. It was consolidated in the 8th century, after the Arab conquest. Like the city itself, these fortifications were frequently destroyed and rebuilt. At the end of the 9th century, Ismail Samani had the walls rebuilt once again: " As long as I live," he said, " I will be the wall of Bukhara
By the reign of Abdul Aziz Khan, in 1540, the walls were 12 km long and 11 m high. Eleven solid double-leaf gates flanked by turrets, which remained closed at night, were used to enter. The walls suffered a few setbacks during the feudal wars, but protected the city until the Russian conquest. By 1920, the Bolshevik army had left only a few kilometers of wall, large sections of which can still be seen today in the bazaar district and in the south-west of the city. The best-preserved sections are to be found to the north of the Ismaïl Samani mausoleum and around the Talipoch gate (once adorned with gold nails and one of only two to have survived to the present day). Until the arrival of the Russians, this was the site of the slave market, since replaced by the large Kolkhoznaya bazaar.
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