Nature2 km away
Tashkent Botanical Garden
A large research garden in the north of the city, with tree collections from several continents, shady alleys and a pond, popular in spring when the blossom is out.
Aktepa Yunusabad
A tall earthen mound in north-east Tashkent, the remains of an early medieval fortified estate built of rammed clay and lived in from the 5th to the 13th century.
Archaeology5th–13th century
About the place
Aktepa in Yunusabad is a medieval site on the Aktepa canal, near the 17th quarter of the Yunusabad district. Its core is a fortified residence on a raised clay platform, rebuilt over centuries; archaeologists think it may have been a summer seat of the ruler of Chach, the old name of the Tashkent oasis.
The walls are rammed clay (pakhsa) from the 7th–8th centuries and are unusually well preserved. Coins and traces of a heavy fire suggest the palace was ruined in the early 8th century, at the time of the Arab campaigns, and the settlement faded before the Mongol invasion. Today you see a steep mound rising out of the modern city.
Why go
- Well-preserved rammed-clay walls of the 7th–8th centuries
- Possibly a summer residence of the rulers of Chach
- An ancient mound inside a modern residential district
Sources (4)
Nearby
- Nature
Attractions2 km away
Tashkent Zoo
The city zoo next to the Botanical Garden, opened on its present 22.7-hectare site in 1997, with more than 3,000 animals and an aquarium.
Ensembles3 km away
Shahidlar Khotirasi Memorial
A memorial park on both banks of the Bozsu canal in Tashkent, at a ravine where thousands were shot during the Soviet repressions.
Museums3 km away
State Museum of Victims of Repression
A museum in the Shahidlar Khotirasi memorial in Tashkent that tells of political repression in Uzbekistan from the 1860s to the 1950s.