Tourist Attractions

Ashgabad, Kunya Urgench, Mary, Dashoguz, Marv

 

Ashgabad

Ashgabat which means in Arabic “lovely settlement” is situated where the Kopet Dagh mountains meet the Kara Kum desert. Elevated at 230 meters above sea level the city descends from the nearby mountains in amphitheater fashion, facing the desert.

Founded in 1881 Ashgabat quickly became one of the most important towns of the regions. The city's growth came to an abrupt end in October of 1948, when the city was raised from the ground by one of the strongest earthquakes of the world. However, the city was reborn from ashes and ruins quickly. Nowadays, Ashgabat is a large, modern city with wide boulevards and streets, many parks and hundreds of fountains. Since Turkmenistan gained independence Ashgabat has been dramatically changed in appearance. For the past decade the city has been embellished by a new generation of fashionable, impressive hotels, showy offices and high- rise apartments. Supporting the population of 900,000 people Ashgabat can offer its inhabitants and guests a lot of modern amenities: museums, theatres, public attractions, stadiums, swimming pools, restaurants and cafes serving both traditional and international cuisine. Two more huge sports structures: the Ice Palace and Water Sports Complex are expected to be put into operation by late 2006.

 

The Turkmen capital enjoys some 300 days of sun each year and, for this reason, it is also known as “ Sun City ”. However, the city is well protected from the blazing sun by lush vegetation and its numerous fountains create a pleasant microclimate. Due to wide use of drip irrigation the once barren hills skirting Ashgabat from the south have been covered with groves of evergreen fir-trees. Following a grid pattern of streets Ashgabat is extending eastwards, westwards and southwards, its northern outskirts being separated from the hot Kara Kum desert by a broad forested belt. Ashgabat is also nicknamed a “ White City ” because all the municipal buildings and new apartments have been clad in white marble of late. Anyone arriving in Asghabat is impressed to find this “desert-on-the-edge” city so nice and blooming.

 

Kunya Urgench

Konya-Urgench is located 110 km northwest of Dashoguz. The outskirts of the town adjoin the territory of the State Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve, covering nearly 640 hectares . The Reserve was founded in 1985 and recently was entered the list of the UNESCO World Heritage for its handful of beautiful old buildings.

 

Konya-Urgench was the ancient capital of Khorezm, a fertile country on the lower reaches of the Oxus (now Amu-Darya) River. Through its centuries-old history it had passed through the hands of many conquerors. The first mention of Konya-Urgench is found in the Chinese written records dated from the early 1st century AD. Until the year of 711 Khorezm maintained its independence before it fell to the Arabs. Konya-Urgench began its upward path when its ruler Mamun succeeded in uniting the country in AD 995. At this time the Amu-Darya flowed through the city.

 

In the 11 th century Khorezm fell to the all-conquering Seljuks, but rose in the 12 th century under a local dynasty of the Great Khorezmshahs. The Khorezmshahs conquered an enormous area including Persia, most of Afghanistan and all of Central Asia/ With its mosques, madrasas, libraries and flourishing bazaars the city became, at the start of the 13 th century the center of the Muslim world. “I have never seen a larger, richer, or more beautiful town:, wrote a Greek scholar, who visited nearly all the cities of the east about the capital of Khorezm.

 

In the year of 1221 Khorezm was attacked by Genghiz-Khan`s hordes. The Mongols besieged the city for six month and then destroyed it. They left nothing but a heap of skulls and smoking ashes. Then they broke a wooden dam on the river and let it wash through the city. “Konya-Urgench became the abode of the jackal and the haunt of the owl and the kite”, wrote one local historian. Fortunately, a few architectural monuments survived unharmed after this tragedy.

 

Still, the city rose again. An Arabic traveler Ibn Battuta described it in 1333 as “the largest, greatest, most beautiful and most important city, shaking under the weight of its population, with bazaars so crowded that it was difficult to pass”. Konya-Urgench was again embellished by a new generation of monumental buildings.

 

Then came Timur. He mounted five separate campaigns between 1372 and 1388, each time inflicting the city to havoc. During the final attack in 1388 he finished off the city. Konya-Urgench was partly rebuilt to be abandoned again when the Amu-Darya changed its course in the 16 th century.

 

Mary

The province of Mary, the southernmost part of Turkmenistan , is a large and fertile oasis set in the sands of the Kara Kum desert. The oasis is irrigated by two waterways: the Murgab River and the man-made Kara Kun canal cut in the 1950-s. The Murgab River enters the oasis at the south and fans into a delta in the north, before it vanishes in the sands. The length of the Kara Kum canal across the oasis is 180 km . The population of the province stands at one million people. Local products include cotton, corn and fruit. Since ancient times this area has been famous for its superb fabrics: both cottons and silks that are still woven there. It is in this province that Turkmenistan 's major gas deposits are located. In 1968 the unique gas field was discovered there called “Shatlyk” (“joy”). 

The principal city of the province is MARY. Mary is the third largest city in Turkmenistan located on the western edge of the Mary oases. Lying on the Murgab river it supports a population of 100,000 people. It has an airport, railway and roads.

Mary rose in 1884 as a Russian military-administrative center a short distance from the site of ancient Merv. The new settlement – also initially called Merv until 1937 – developed rapidly due to the construction of the Trans-Caspian railway line across Turkmenistan . With the railway came merchants, hoteliers and even tourists. 

Until recently Mary had a bad reputation for its only hotel with poor facilities. Things have changed since then. Now Mary is home for a nice newly opened hotel “Margush” on the bank of the Murgab River .

 

HISTORY MUSEUM of MARY is located in the city center in an old merchant's house, close to the Murgab River . It boasts of a rich collection of archaeological finds from sites excavated in the Mary oasis, including those from the Bronze Age Gonur Depeh and the cities of Merv. The museum also has displays of the world-famous Turkmen carpets, magnificent jewelry of gilt-silver inlaid with semi-precious stones of turquoise and cornelian, traditional costumes worn by the various Turkmen tribes, domestic utensils and a nomad's yurt. The Russian annexation of the Mary oasis has brought about an influx of new people from Russia , Caucasus and Persia . The museum familiarizes its visitors with the way of life of the different national minorities that once inhabited the oasis: the Russians, Armenians, ethnic Germans, Baluchi people, etc.

 

Meana Baba: Following an old caravan route the highway from Mary to Ashgabat is studded with dilapidated medieval castles, mausolea and mosques. If you reach a smaller town of Dushak and turn off the road towards the Kopetdag range ( 45 km ) you will find a lonely standing mausoleum of Meane-Baba (11th century). Although in a bad state of preservation this mausoleum is the masterpiece of the polychrome-pictorial style typical for the medieval architecture. Of particular interest is its beautiful portal laid in blue, dark-blue, white and yellow tiles. Two round pillars decorated in spirally laid multi-colored tiles support the portal arch. Topped by a high double cupola the mausoleum consists of square chamber with the side of 10,3 m . The inside from the floor to cupola top is adorned with multi-colored murals against the white background.

 

Abiverd: Just at the side of the highway (some 100 km east of Ashgabat) lie the remains of a vanished medieval city of Abiverd . As far back as the 5 th -6 th centuries Abiverd was well known for its agriculture and handicrafts. The city consisted of a walled fortress with a citadel within it and blocks of artisans sprawled on both sides of the fortress. In excavation of Abiverd archaeologists found locally minted coins, shards of finely-done pottery, superb articles of jewelry and the remains of a well-sophisticated system of water supply: wells, reservoirs, ice-houses, etc. Although no longer in existence the city's ground is still littered with fragments of beautiful pottery.

 

Dashoguz

The province of Dashoguz occupies the north of the country with the center at Dashoguz city, the only sizable city of the area. Traditionally inhabited by the Yomud people it supports the population of 1 million people. Once this was the heart of ancient Khoresm with its fabled capital of Kunya-Urgench. 

The province is criss-crossed by numerous canals tapping its water from the nearby Amu-Darya River . 
The main industries are food and building materials. 
The province is a large manufacturer of cotton, vegetables and fruit. Rice is also cultivated there. 
Cattle's breeding is the main branch in live stock raising.

 

Marv

Merv was one of the largest, most cosmopolitan cities of the ancient world. Rising above a lush oasis straddling the Silk Road , it once rivaled Damascus , Baghdad and Cairo as a trading center. Its libraries were legendary, its architecture splendid and rich. Its craftsmen developed highly prized Damascus steel centuries before such a product poured from European foundries. The city of Merv was a commercial power for centuries. Today, Merv is Central Asia 's most extensive archaeological site and excavating it is one of the biggest challenges in all of archaeology.

 

Spread over more than 60 sq km, Merv is actually the site of no less than four walled cities from different periods, each built beside the last. They are the earliest city of Alexandria , Antiokhia, Islamic or medieval city of Sultan Kala and post-medieval city of Abdullah-Khan Kala .

 

ALEXANDRIA OR ERK KALA (“ Citadel Castle ”) is in some ways the most imposing site of Merv. Thought to date from the 6th century BC it is enclosed by massive walls still some 30 m in places. Polygonal in form it was probably entered via a drawbridge over the moat in the south, near its highest tower, which still dominates the landscape. Today it is a big earthen basin about 800 m across. Set on the inside a huge built-up platform of mud brick ( 15 m high) was probably the residential palace of a local ruler.

 

The second city of Merv , known today as ANTIOKHIA OR GYAUR KALA (“Castle of the Infidels”) was founded by the Seleucids, Alexander's successors, in 238 BC. It was approximately square, each wall measuring some 2 km in length. The city was laid out on a regular grid pattern and occupied some 360 ha . The city walls are still solid today, with three gaps where the gates once were. Being occupied for nearly nine centuries it was the longest living of the cities of Merv. It had witnessed the comings and goings of at least three empires of the Seleucids, Parthians and Sasanians. The city was a melting pot where the adherents of the official Zoroastrian faith peacefully cohabited with the followers of Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity and Judaism.

 

The medieval city of SULTAN KALA began as an extra-mural suburb across the canal that formed the western perimeter of Gyaur Kala from the Arab arrival in the 8 th century. The new occupied area was first walled in the 11 th century. But the city grew so quickly and soon expanded beyond the walls. It is under the Seljuks that Merv attained the highpoint of its development. It grew into the greatest city the region had ever known, called “Royal Merv” or “the Pearl of the East”. As many as one million people crowded the city and its oasis. Merv`s world-famous libraries and observatory attracted scholars from all over the East. Then came the Mongols in 1221. The city's defenses appeared very strong as was proven by the fact that the Mongol army road around the walls for six days trying to find the weak points in the walls. But the Mongols managed to take control of the vital dam on the Murgab River that supplied the city with water. In the end the inhabitants were compelled to surrender. The Mongols` revenge was appalling. They massacred up to one million people and then sacked the city. For two centuries afterwards Merv lay waste. “The city which had been embellished by great men of the world became the haunt of hyenas and beasts of pray”, wrote one of the travelers who happened to visit Merv after the Mongol invasion. Not until the 15 th century did Merv again revive somewhat. In 1409 the Timurid ruler Shah Rukh, heir to Timur, built a new city known today as ABDULLAH KHAN KALA. It was the smallest of the three cities of Merv, occupying some 44 ha . Rectangular in form it was enclosed by thick walls reinforced with four large circular corner towers and some 44 additional towers. The city was originally entered by four gates located in the centers of the walls. There was a large mosque, madrasa and the citadel that housed the ruler`s palace together with a caravanserai and storerooms. Unfortunately, little survives of the city today but the line of the walls.

 

The landmark of Merv is the imposing MAUSOLEUM of SULTAN SANJAR (mid-12 th century). So prominent was the mausoleum of Sanjar the Great, sultan of the Seljuk Empire, and its turquoise dome so magnificent, that Silk Road caravans could spot it while they were still a full day`s march away across the southern Karakum Desert. Though its beautiful tiles are long since gone, the mausoleum`s wind-weathered dome still dominates the desolate, ruined city of Merv. The square mausoleum measures 27 m a side and consists of a square chamber. Inside is only Sanjar`s simple stone grave. All Seljuk monumental buildings are embellished with elegant с ut brickwork, and the given mausoleum is no exception. Interior decoration is sparse, though fragments of stucco revealed in restoration testifies to the lavish decoration which once adorned the interior.

 

GREAT and LITTLE KYZ KALAS (‘Maiden`s castles) are among the buildings that remain of Merv`s four ruined cities. These are fort-like structures with corrugated walls. The most impressive castle is the GREAT KYZ KALA. It is nearly square in plan (42 x 37 m ) with the lower story contained within a monumental sloping platform. This is pierced by narrow, wedge-shaped windows, sloping downwards to light the vaulted rooms of the lower story The walls of the upper story rise with a distinct incline or batter and are broken up into corrugations or tall engaged columns. These magnificent corrugations still survive to nearly their original height and end in a series of triangular points, representing the eroded remains of crenellations. The corrugations are semi-octagonal in form and rise smoothly from the platform. The division of the exterior into two zones reflects the internal arrangement into two stories. Entrance was via ramps on the east side to the upper story. Little survives of the interior of the upper story. Only the stubs of some walls provide an idea of its layout and structure. The principal feature would probably have been a central courtyard surrounded by domed and vaulted rooms. The lower story is no longer accessible due to collapse, although there preserved a staircase that once led down. The Little Kyz Kala is located some 100 m to the south of the Great Kyz Kala. Although considerably smaller (22 x 22 m ) and much less well preserved, it appears to have shared the same plan as its large neighbor. This monument is the only one with parts of the lower story visible: at least five vaulted rooms survived with the remains of a staircase in the south east corner.

 

The religious complex of YUSUF HAMADANI is located near the Islamic city of Sultan Kala . Arrived from the Iranian city of Hamadan in the early 12 the century sheikh Abu Yaqub Yusuf ibn Ayub (1048-1140) lived and died in Merv. He was one of the leaders of suphism here. Although it is likely that a mausoleum was built over the grave soon after his death, nothing survives of this structure. The present mausoleum is a modern rebuilding of a 19 th century reconstruction and houses a black marble cenotaph decorated with inscriptions and floral designs. The main part of the complex is the prayer hall to the west of the mausoleum decorated with tilework. Recently enlarged and refurbished the complex has turned into an important place of worship.

 

The mausoleum of MUHAMMAD ibn SAYD was built in the early 12 th century and is one of the best examples of an Islamic shrine in the oasis of Merv. It consists of three main elements, the mausoleum itself, a mosque or prayer hall a secondary mausoleum or anteroom. The complex was restored in the mid-20 th century, but part of the original outer facing of fine brickwork on the north wall and the sea-shell decoration of the mosque recess (“mihrab”) in the east wall are original.

 

Lovers of archaeology can be recommended an interesting day`s outing to MARGUSH, a large excavation site in the ancient delta of the Murgab river on the edge of the Karakum desert ( 100 km north of Mary). It should be noticed that the site can be reached only by a four-wheel drive. When in 1972 Professor V.Sarianidi started excavating the mounds located there he discovered the traces of a vanished Bronze Age civilization whose existence had never been suspected. Since then the archaeologists have unearthed about 300 settlements lost in sands of the Kara Kum desert. It is these settlements that formed one of the earliest farming civilizations in Central Asia mentioned on the famous Behistan rock under the name of Margush. It was also the ancient land of Margiana , as the classical Roman and Greek writers called it.

 

Of particular interest is the central settlement of Gonur-Depeh (1500 – 1250 BC). It consists of the Royal Palace , Temple of Fire and Necropolis. Located on a natural elevation the Palace was a complicated system of large halls and patios linked with passages and wide corridors. In excavation of the Tower of Fire the archaeologists revealed altars of different sizes, furnaces, hearths and pools. A rich burial material has been obtained in excavation of the Necropolis. It includes lady's adornments made of gold and semi-precious stones, fine pottery, small figurines of animals, etc. The season of 2004 was very fruitful for the archaeologists. When digging out a burial they unearthed worked silver vessels decorated with gold insets, two chariots, bones of a sacrificed animal and lots of pottery shards. Visitors to Turkmenistan can admire at these timeless objects displayed at the museums of Asghabat and Mary.