Turkistan
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2006
1
8
32
Trip End
Jun 14, 2007
Turkistan,
Kazakhstan
Thursday, July 20, 2006
here are some photos of our trip to Turkistan at the end of July with Zhanara and her friend Maria from Boulder Colorado. Maria was in town for a few weeks and spent some time staying with us in Taraz. The heat was peaking around this time of summer so, we decided it would be a good idea to go to the desert.! Well, the real reason was to check out Kazakhstan's most important Muslim pilgrimage site. The Yasaui Mausoleum
Anyhow, the town is around 165 km from Shimkent at the edge of the Kyzylkum Desert.
Anyhow there isn't much in this town but a small Turkish University some dusty looking Shashlyk( Central Asian kebab) stands and the Mausoleum built by Timurlane to honor the Sufi mystical poet Kozha Akhmed Yasaui who died in 1163. Timurlane had this place built in a "grand scale" around the 1390's. It was never completed because Timurlane died
Well, the Mausoleum is actually the only reason to trek alll the way out here. I did see a sandstorm at the end of the day.
Anyhow the building and surrounding complex of the mausoleum are quite interesting. There was a nice little museum that had all sorts of different books and artifacts. It was actually an underground house for Yasaui who went into mourning in honor of The death of Prophet Mohammed.
