Kirk-Kiz Fortress

The name means "forty girls", taken from a local legend about a band of women warriors. The building is a square block with towers at the corners and a grid of vaulted rooms and corridors around a central space.

Scholars have suggested that it was a country estate, a caravanserai or a Sufi lodge; there is no firm answer. Parts of the vaults still stand, and walking through the corridors gives a good sense of how mud-brick architecture was planned.