MuseumsUnder 1 km away
Chorsu Gallery
A domed eighteenth-century trading hall behind the Registan, now used as an art gallery.
Chorsu Trading Dome, Samarkand
An 18th-century domed market hall just south-east of the Registan, now an art gallery run by the Academy of Arts.
Ensemblesc. 1785
About the place
Chorsu, Persian for "four ways", stands at the old crossroads where the roads to Tashkent, Bukhara and Shakhrisabz met, and a market stood here from the 15th century. The present building went up around 1785 under the Bukharan emir Shah Murad. Its outer walls form a twelve-sided prism, with a large central dome and smaller domes over the entrances.
Until the early 20th century merchants sold caps, cloth, medicines and books under the domes. In 2005 the building passed to the Academy of Arts and was fully restored, with three metres of built-up soil cleared to bring back its original height. It now shows work by Uzbek and foreign artists and is part of the Samarkand World Heritage site.
Why go
- Twelve-sided domed building beside the Registan
- Art exhibitions inside
- An old trading crossroads of the city
Sources (2)
Nearby
- Museums
EnsemblesUnder 1 km away
Shaybanid Dakhma
A raised marble platform on the Registan in Samarkand with 36 gravestones of the Shaybanid dynasty, including Muhammad Shaybani Khan, from the 16th century.
EnsemblesUnder 1 km awayUNESCO World Heritage
Sher-Dor Madrasa
The 17th-century madrasa on the east side of the Registan in Samarkand, named for the tiger-like lions chasing gazelles on its portal.
EnsemblesUnder 1 km awayUNESCO World Heritage
Registan
The central square of old Samarkand, framed on three sides by the Ulugh Beg, Sher-Dor and Tilla-Kari madrasas.