Kukeldash Madrasah

Bukhara's largest madrasah stands on the northern side of Lyab-i Hauz square and is older than everything else in the ensemble: it was completed in 1568-1569, half a century before the hauz was dug beside it. The money was given by Kulbaba Kukeldash - a dignitary of Abdullah Khan II, his foster brother, a poet and a patron of the arts; after the khan's death Kulbaba perished in the turmoil of 1598. The building takes up eighty-six by sixty-nine metres: a hundred and sixty large and small hujra cells are lined up in two tiers around the perimeter of a courtyard with two iwans, and there is its own mosque and a lecture room. This is the first madrasah in the city to have loggias brought out onto the side facades as well. The entrance portal is almost devoid of tilework and rests on bare brickwork, but the leaves of the gate are covered with carved heraldic ornament. Together with the khanaka on the western side and the Divan-Begi madrasah on the eastern one, Kukeldash closes the square, leaving the middle to the pool. From the upper gallery there is a view over the roofs of the old town and the domes of the trading arcades. Today part of the premises is occupied by workshops, shops and a museum of the history of Bukhara literature.

On the map