Bolo Haouz Mosque

Twenty slender wooden columns, so tall and thin they seem barely able to carry the painted ceiling above them, give the Bolo Haouz Mosque its unmistakable silhouette, and their reflection in the pool in front completes the picture. The mosque stands on the old Registan square of Bukhara, directly opposite the Ark, the fortress-residence of the city's rulers, and before the revolution it was the main Friday mosque of Bukhara, where the emir himself came to pray.

Bukhara, an oasis city on the old caravan routes of Central Asia, has kept its historic centre, which is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The mosque was built in 1712, funded by the mother of Abulfayz Khan, the ruler of the time, together with the octagonal pool, or hauz, that gives it its name — "the mosque by the pool". Such reservoirs once supplied the city's neighbourhoods with water. The building follows the type of a large neighbourhood mosque: a winter prayer hall with four columns and several entrances, wrapped on three sides by an open summer hall in the form of an iwan.

The iwan is the mosque's glory. About 12 metres high and 42 by 10 metres in plan, it rests on twenty wooden columns set on concrete foundations, their tops dissolving into carved muqarnas capitals painted in many colours. The tall columns of the front iwan date from 1917, when the summer mosque was reworked, and in the same year the master builder Shirin Muradov added the short minaret to one side, banded with brick and blue glazed tiles in geometric patterns. The interior decoration reflects the taste of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Getting there

The mosque stands on the Registan square in the historic centre of Bukhara, opposite the Ark. The nearest airport is Bukhara International Airport (BHK), about 6 km away.