Bolo Hauz Mosque

The Friday mosque of the emirs of Bukhara stands on Registan Square opposite the Ark fortress. It was built in 1712 with funds from the mother of the ruler Abulfeyz Khan, while the famous iwan with its twenty wooden columns was added only at the beginning of the 20th century. Carved pillars almost twelve metres high hold up a painted ceiling with stalactite capitals, which earned the mosque the nickname of the forty-column mosque: the reflection in the pool doubled their number. Every beam of the ceiling was painted separately, in a floral pattern on the wood, and the capitals were assembled from small wooden cells. The winter part is arranged as a four-column hall, and the summer iwan runs around it on three sides. In front of the entrance the old hauz, the pool that gave the building its name, has survived, and beside it stands a low minaret of 1917 by the master Shirin Muradov, the same man who later repaired the Abdulaziz Khan madrasa and carved the decoration for the emir's country palace. Before the revolution this was the main congregational mosque of the city: the emir came here to pray on foot from the gates of the fortress, and the walk across the square was part of the ceremony. The mosque is still in use today.

On the map