Getting There<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Bukhara zindan is located in the historical center of Bukhara, in the northwestern corner of Shakhristan, on the territory of the ancient mahalla Khoja Nizamiddin Bolo, a hundred meters north-east of the Ark fortress.  Zindan is built mainly of ceramic bricks, surrounded by high walls, which are adjacent to the buildings of the zindan, and resembles a kind of fortress or fortification.  The entrance to the zindan was through a large wooden gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening hours for visiting: Open everyday (24 hours a day) except Sundays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What to Expect<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Bukhara zindan is located in the historical center of Bukhara, in the northwestern corner of Shakhristan, on the territory of the ancient mahalla Khoja Nizamiddin Bolo, a hundred meters north-east of the Ark fortress.  Zindan is built mainly of ceramic bricks, surrounded by high walls, which are adjacent to the buildings of the zindan, and resembles a kind of fortress or fortification.  The entrance to the zindan was through a large wooden gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

History<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Zindan is divided into two parts: zindani bolo – upper zindan and zindani poyon – lower zindan.\u00a0 The first part consists of several courtyards with rooms for prisoners.\u00a0 The prisoners of this part of the zindan were taken out of the dungeon once or twice a month, chained to the square.\u00a0 They usually walked barefoot, regardless of the weather.\u00a0 The second part consists of a deep hole, 5 meters in diameter and 6.5 meters deep, criminals descended to its bottom on ropes, as well as food was transferred to them in the same way.\u00a0 The imprisonment of prisoners or those convicted of serious crimes in a deep pit was used in many Muslim countries of that period.\u00a0 One special large cell was intended for political prisoners and high-ranking officials of the khanate, who for one reason or another ended up in the zindan.\u00a0 Most often, rebels, murderers, robbers, thieves, debtors, rapists (if the death penalty was not applied to them), sentenced to death (most often decapitation was used) and awaiting execution, if it was not committed immediately after the sentence, fell into the zindan.\u00a0 as well as suspects awaiting sentencing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zindan in terms of the conditions of detention of prisoners was no different from the rest of the zindans of that period.\u00a0 The prisoners were in the zindan in inhuman conditions, some of the prisoners did not know for how long they were imprisoned.\u00a0 Everything depended on their behavior, as well as outside help from relatives or friends of the prisoner, who could bribe the Kazi (if he could be bribed), the head of the zindan, or achieve a mitigation of the sentence by giving them gifts, monetary reward, covering the damage caused or providing a special\u00a0 characteristics from elders or similar personalities who were familiar with the prisoner.\u00a0 In winter, spring and autumn, the zindans were not heated, but capable prisoners could make a fire themselves and cook food.\u00a0 The food in the zindan was very meager, and most often the prisoners were fed with stale flat cakes and watered with plain water from a ditch or a khauz.\u00a0 Sometimes the premises of the zindans were overcrowded above the norm due to the large number of prisoners, and sometimes some of the prisoners were forced to stay in the open air in chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bukhara zindan, along with other architectural, archaeological, religious and cultural monuments of Bukhara, is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List under the name – “Historical Center of Bukhara”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facilities Available<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Today, Zindan has several rooms with dummies depicting prisoners and a torture chamber with instruments of torture.  The exposition of the museum provides information about court cases in the Bukhara Emirate in the 19th – early 20th centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the territory of the prison there is the grave of the holy prisoners “Kuchkar-Ata” (VIII century).\u00a0 Behind the Ark fortress (from the north-east) there is a building of a medieval prison – “zindan”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This tall fortress-like structure houses a museum today.\u00a0 In the past, the prison consisted of two parts.\u00a0 In the first, inmates were held in cells located in several courtyards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second, the criminals were in deep pits, where they were lowered on ropes.\u00a0 This is where the name \u201czindan\u201d originated, which translated from Persian means \u201csubway, darkness\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bukhara zindan is now not a functioning zindan in the historical center of Bukhara, in Uzbekistan. It was built at the end of the 18th century, during the reign of the Uzbek dynasty of Mangyts. It was one of the largest zindans of the Bukhara Emirate. It was closed after the Bukhara revolution, the fall of the monarchy and the formation of the Bukhara People’s Soviet Republic. Nowadays it is one of the sights of the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11533,"parent":0,"template":"","destination_type":[17],"location":[30,28],"site_type":[164],"featured":[],"class_list":["post-396","destination","type-destination","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","destination_type-site","location-bukhara","location-uzbekistan","site_type-archaeological-ancient-monuments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destination\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destination"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/destination"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destination\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18887,"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destination\/396\/revisions\/18887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"destination_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/destination_type?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"site_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/site_type?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visitsilkroad.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}