Chorus minor

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Chorus minor

Chor Minor ( Persian چهارمنار Chahar Menar ) is a gate building in the Uzbek city ​​of Buxoro . Alongside the Kalon minaret, it is the city's second landmark.

location

The gate building is located in the east of the historic center of Buxoro about 500 meters northeast of the Labi Hovuz building complex and about 1 km southwest of Fayzobod-Chanaqa in a residential area on the north side of a small square.

history

Chor Minor was originally part of a madrasa believed to have been built in 1807 by Xalfa Niyozqul, a wealthy Turkmen merchant. The madrasa was 92 meters long and 40 meters wide. A bright columned hall was arranged as a summer mosque within its courtyard .

Of the whole complex, only the gatehouse and the adjoining single-storey extensions, which originally contained the students' living cells, are preserved. Only the foundation walls of a few other cells have been preserved.

In 1995 one of the four towers collapsed as a result of an underground stream, whereupon the sight was immediately removed from the touristic sightseeing program. Apparently, the authorities felt the event as an embarrassing shame and they tried to leave the population in the dark about it so much that foreign visitors were amazed the following year that even official city guides had no idea of ​​the collapse of one of the towers because the building was no longer listed on their tour program. But it was hurried to restore it. There is hardly any travel guide that mentions the newly built fourth tower of this Bukhara landmark. For the urgent restoration of the World Heritage attraction, support from the WORLD HERITAGE Fund of UNESCO had been requested and received, but contrary to the agreements with UNESCO, all World Heritage guidelines were ignored during the reconstruction by carelessly using “non-conventional building materials such as Inferior quality cement and steel used ”.

description

Chor Minor is a two-storey brick building with a footprint of 19 × 9 meters. It has a pointed arched dome reinforced with ribs .

There are 17 meter high towers at the four corners of the structure. The building takes its name from them (= four minarets). However, the towers do not fulfill the function of a minaret, but merely serve to decorate the building. They have domes made of light blue glazed bricks. The upper sections of the towers are also provided with patterns made of glazed bricks, which are designed differently on each tower, otherwise the walls are left in brick shell construction. A staircase in a tower leads to the upper floor.

In terms of its architectural layout, Chor Minor is unique in Central Asia and is more reminiscent of Indian models. This makes it one of the most original buildings from the Mangit era in Buxoro.

  • overall view

  • Side wing

  • Foundation walls

  • back

  • Spire

literature

  • Klaus Pander: Tschar Menar . In: Central Asia . 5th updated edition. DuMont Reiseverlag , 2004, ISBN 3-7701-3680-2 , chapter Bukhara, the noble , p. 165 f . (DuMont art travel guide).
  • Bradley Mayhew, Greg Bloom, John Noble, Dean Starnes: Other sights . In: Central Asia . 5th edition. Lonely Planet , 2010, ISBN 978-1-74179-148-8 , chapter Bukhara , p. 263 .

Web links

Commons : Chor Minor  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Pander: Zentralasien , 2004, p. 166
  2. ↑ So u. a. Pander: Zentralasien , 2004, p. 165. However, there are doubts about this year of construction, because a madrasa of the merchant Niyozqul is already mentioned in documents from the end of the 17th century (see, among other things, Die Medrese Tschor-Minor. In: www.doca -tours.com. Accessed on 24 November 2016 . ).
  3. ↑ Harald Stöber, Far and Mysterious Asia. Mysticism & Reality, Leipzig 2013
  4. ↑ World Heritage Center - State of Conservation (SOC 1997) Historic Center of Bukhara (Uzbekistan)
  5. ^ Pander: Zentralasien , 2004, p. 165
  6. ↑ Chor Minor Mosque, Bukhara. In: www.advantour.com. Retrieved November 24, 2016 .
  7. ↑ The Medrese Chor Minor. In: www.doca-tours.com. Retrieved November 24, 2016 .
  8. ↑ Char Minar. In: www.lonelyplanet.com. Retrieved November 24, 2016 .

Coordinates: 39 ° 46 ′ 29.5 ″  N , 64 ° 25 ′ 38.5 ″  E