--- title: "Top 10 Things To Do in Bukhara, Uzbekistan | Wimup" description: "Bukhara's 10 best experiences: the Poi Kalyan ensemble, the Ark citadel, the Samanid Mausoleum, Lyabi-Hauz and the Silk Road trading domes, with where to eat and how to arrive." url: https://wimup.com/city/bukhara type: City guide updated: 2026-10-24 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10 Things To Do in Bukhara Bukhara, Uzbekistan · Asia · By Wimup Editorial, 15 min read Samarkand has the bigger monuments. Bukhara has the city. The mosques, madrasas and covered bazaars here still sit on the lanes, pools and canals that connected them, which is why UNESCO listed the whole historic centre in 1993 rather than a handful of set pieces. Nothing is more than a twenty-minute walk from anything else. ## Quick answer Bukhara is the most complete medieval city left in Central Asia, and almost all of it is walkable. Start at the Poi Kalyan ensemble, cross the covered trading domes to the pool at Lyabi-Hauz, and give a separate morning to the Ark and the Samanid Mausoleum at the western end. Two full days cover the old town. A third buys the summer palace, the Naqshbandi shrine and the necropolis outside it. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Apr · May · Sep · Oct - **Ideal length:** 2–3 days - **Budget per day:** $30–70 - **Language:** Uzbek and Tajik (Russian widely spoken) - **Getting around:** On foot, then Yandex Go - **Tourism board:** [↗ Website](https://uzbekistan.travel/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) ## The 10 best things to do in Bukhara ### 1. Poi Kalyan Landmark · Khodja Nurobobod Street, Bukhara The city's central set piece, and the one to see first. The Kalyan Minaret went up in 1127 under the Karakhanid ruler Arslan Khan, rises 45.6 metres in fourteen bands of patterned brick, and was the tallest thing in Central Asia for centuries. Genghis Khan sacked Bukhara in 1220 and spared it. Facing it are the Kalyan Mosque and the Mir-i-Arab Madrasa of the 1530s. - **Time:** 60–90 min - **Cost:** Square free, mosque ticketed - **Best at:** First light - **Tip:** The mosque courtyard is nearly empty before 8am ### 2. The Ark of Bukhara Fortress · Registan Square, Afrosiyob Street, Bukhara A royal citadel raised on the mound of every fortress that stood here before it, occupied for well over a thousand years and the residence of the emirs until 1920. Red Army shelling gutted most of the interior, so what survives is the western third: the coronation court, the Friday mosque, the mint and the reception hall. - **Time:** 60–90 min - **Cost:** Ticketed - **Best at:** Late afternoon - **Tip:** The ramparts give the best view of Bolo Hauz opposite ### 3. Samanid Mausoleum Mausoleum · Samanids Recreation Park, Bukhara A cube of baked brick the size of a small room, and the oldest funerary monument standing in Central Asia, built at the turn of the ninth and tenth centuries for the Samanid dynasty. There is no tile and no paint: the whole effect is brick laid in basketweave and disc patterns that change as the sun moves. Flood silt buried it, so the Mongols never found it. - **Time:** 30 min - **Cost:** Ticketed - **Best at:** Morning, for raking light on the brick - **Tip:** Chashma-Ayub is a two-minute walk on through the same park ### 4. Lyabi-Hauz Square · Bahouddin Naqshbandi Street, Bukhara The last of the open reservoirs that once watered Bukhara, dug in 1620 and framed on three sides by stone steps, mulberry trees and teahouses. The Kukeldash Madrasa of 1568 sits on the north side; the Nadir Divanbegi buildings face each other across the water, one carrying a mosaic of two phoenixes at a sun with a human face. - **Time:** 45 min - **Cost:** Free - **Best at:** Evening - **Tip:** Order tea at the pool edge and pay the tourist premium once; it is worth it here ### 5. The trading domes Bazaar · Khakikat Street, Bukhara Four domed crossroads built in the sixteenth century, each roofing a junction of the bazaar street and each named for the trade that held it: Toqi Zargaron for the jewellers, Toqi Telpak Furushon for the hatmakers, Toqi Sarrafon for the money changers. They are not a museum. Scissors, carpets, suzani and spices still change hands under them. - **Time:** 60 min - **Cost:** Free - **Best at:** Mid-morning - **Tip:** Prices soften noticeably the further you get from Lyabi-Hauz ### 6. Chor Minor Landmark · Chor Minor Street, east of Lyabi-Hauz, Bukhara Four brick towers under blue domes, usually dated to 1807 and built by a Turkmen merchant. It is not a mosque and never was a whole building: this is the gatehouse of a madrasa that has otherwise disappeared, which is why it stands alone down a residential lane. Each tower is decorated differently, and nobody agrees on what the four stand for. - **Time:** 20 min - **Cost:** Free outside, small fee to climb - **Best at:** Golden hour - **Tip:** Follow the signed lanes east from Lyabi-Hauz rather than the main road ### 7. Bolo Hauz Mosque Mosque · Afrosiyob Street, opposite the Ark, Bukhara The emirs' own Friday mosque, built in 1712 directly across from the citadel so the ruler had only to cross the square. The building is modest; the iwan in front of it is not. Twenty slender painted columns hold up a deeply carved ceiling, and the pool doubles them, which is where the local name, the mosque of forty columns, comes from. - **Time:** 30 min - **Cost:** Free from the pool - **Best at:** Late afternoon - **Tip:** Shoot it from the far side of the water, not from the steps ### 8. Ulugbek and Abdulaziz Khan madrasas Madrasa · Khakikat Street, Bukhara Two madrasas facing each other across a narrow street with 235 years between them, which makes this the best free lesson in Central Asian architecture here. Ulugbek built his in 1417, before the famous one in Samarkand, and it is the oldest surviving madrasa in the region. Abdulaziz Khan answered it in 1652 with painted vaults and gilding, and left it unfinished. - **Time:** 45 min - **Cost:** Ticketed - **Best at:** Midday, when both facades are lit - **Tip:** Stand in the middle of the street and look at one, then the other ### 9. Sitorai Mokhi Khosa Palace · Sitorai Mokhi Khosa, north of Bukhara The summer palace of the last emirs, a few kilometres north of the old town, and the place where nineteenth-century Bukhara met imperial Russia head on. Local craftsmen worked alongside architects from St Petersburg, so a carved plaster hall opens onto Russian parquet and a room lined in mirrors. The clearest picture of how the emirate ended. - **Time:** 60–90 min - **Cost:** Ticketed - **Best at:** Morning - **Tip:** A taxi from the old town takes about 15 minutes each way ### 10. Bahauddin Naqshband Memorial Complex Shrine · Kasri Orifon, Kagan District, Bukhara Region The burial place of Bahauddin Naqshband, who died in 1389 and whose order became the most widespread Sufi brotherhood in the Muslim world. This is the busiest pilgrimage site in Uzbekistan, and it does not feel like a monument: the courtyards are full of families and the mood is that of a working shrine. Walk quietly rather than sightsee. - **Time:** 60 min - **Cost:** Free, donations expected - **Best at:** Friday morning, if you want it busy - **Tip:** Cover shoulders and knees; women should carry a scarf ## Best monuments in Bukhara The old town holds far more than the ten above. These six repay stepping off the main axis. 1. **Chashma-Ayub Mausoleum** (12th–16th century · Ticketed · Samanids Park): Built over a spring legend attributes to the prophet Job, with a conical Khorezm dome unlike anything else here. Inside is the water museum. 2. **Magoki-Attori Mosque** (12th century · Ticketed · South of Lyabi-Hauz): The oldest surviving mosque in Bukhara, its carved twelfth-century portal excavated metres below today's street. It now houses the carpet museum. 3. **Kukeldash Madrasa** (1568 · Free courtyard · Lyabi-Hauz): The largest madrasa in Central Asia when it was finished in 1568, with around 160 student cells over two floors. It closes Lyabi-Hauz. 4. **Khoja Gaukushan ensemble** (16th century · Free · Khodja Nurobobod Street): A sixteenth-century mosque, madrasa and minaret built on the site of a slaughterhouse, which the name records. The courtyard is usually empty. 5. **Bukhara Zindan** (Ticketed · 20 min · North of the Ark): The emirate's prison, on the wall north of the Ark, kept as a small museum with the guard rooms and the deep holding pit. Grim and quick. 6. **Talipach Gate and the city wall** (16th century · Free · Northern edge): Bukhara had eleven gates in a wall that ran for kilometres. Talipach is one of two that survive, with a broken run of mudbrick rampart. ## Best trading domes in Bukhara Four sixteenth-century covered markets, each named for the trade that held it. All four still sell things. 1. **Toqi Zargaron** (Jewellers · Free · Poi Kalyan end): The jewellers’ dome and the largest of the four, marking the northern end of the bazaar street where it meets Poi Kalyan. Gold, silver and knives, mostly. 2. **Toqi Telpak Furushon** (1571 · Free · Mid-bazaar): The hatmakers’ dome, built in 1571 and the busiest of the four, with five streets converging under it. Karakul hats, embroidered skullcaps and miniature paintings. 3. **Toqi Sarrafon** (Money changers · Free · Lyabi-Hauz end): The money changers’ dome, closest to Lyabi-Hauz and built over the line of the Shakhrud canal. Now carpets, ceramics and copper. 4. **Tim Abdulla Khan** (1577 · Free · Off Khakikat Street): Not a crossroads but a covered silk hall, raised in 1577 for Abdulla Khan II. It is the darkest and coolest space in the bazaar, and still the place carpets are sold. ## Best museums in Bukhara Most of Bukhara’s museums sit inside its monuments, run as branches of the state museum-reserve. 1. **Bukhara State Museum-Reserve, at the Ark** (History · Ticketed · The Ark): Founded in 1922 and headquartered in the citadel, with permanent displays on the city’s history, its manuscripts and coins, and the court rooms of the last emirs. 2. **Museum of Water Supply** (Ticketed · 30 min · Samanids Park): Inside Chashma-Ayub: waterskins, copper vessels and ceramic pipe, telling how a desert city on no river drank for two thousand years. 3. **Carpet Museum** (Ticketed · 30 min · South of Lyabi-Hauz): Opened in 1991 inside the Magoki-Attori mosque, showing Uzbek, Turkmen and Persian carpets, saddlebags and yurt bands from the eighteenth century onwards. 4. **Fayzulla Khodjaev House-Museum** (Ethnography · Ticketed · Old town, west): The restored townhouse of a merchant family, laid out as it stood at the end of the nineteenth century. The best picture of domestic Bukhara. ## Best restaurants in Bukhara Bukhara eats early and plainly. These five are the dependable tables in and around the old town. 1. **Minzifa** (Uzbek · Rooftop · Khujarushnoy Street): A rooftop terrace in a house said to be over 150 years old, looking across the domes. Uzbek dishes and a short European list; book the terrace. 2. **Old Bukhara** (Uzbek · Courtyard · Near Lyabi-Hauz): A courtyard kitchen near Lyabi-Hauz working a wood-fired oven in the open, which is where the plov and the samsa come from. The terrace fills early. 3. **Chinar** (Uzbek · Local · M. Iqbol Street): A local rather than a tourist room, and the better plov for it, with lagman and shashlik on the same short menu. Away from the monument circuit, so prices drop. 4. **Chasmai Mirob** (Uzbek · Terrace · Khodja Nurobobod Street): Terrace tables with the Kalyan minaret in the frame, which is what you are paying for. The Uzbek staples are solid and the service is used to visitors. 5. **Lyabi House** (Uzbek · Poolside · Lyabi-Hauz): Tables on the edge of the pool under the plane trees, with a long list of Uzbek dishes. The most obvious table in Bukhara, and still the one to take. ## Best craft workshops in Bukhara Bukhara’s trades never stopped. Four places where you can watch the work rather than only buy the result. 1. **Ustoz Shogird miniature workshop** (Miniature painting · Near Lyabi-Hauz): The applied art centre run by the painter Davlat Toshev, near Lyabi-Hauz, where Persian-style miniatures are painted on silk paper. 2. **Blacksmith workshop and museum** (Metalwork · Old town): A working forge where a family of smiths, now a seventh generation, hammer out the stork-headed scissors Bukhara is known for. 3. **Gold embroidery workshops** (Zardozi embroidery · Bukhara): Zardozi, the gold thread embroidery that dressed the emirs, is still worked here, and the surviving workshop employs more than a hundred people. 4. **Bukhara Handicraft Development Centre** (Mixed crafts · Old town): Several trades under one roof in a restored caravanserai: ceramics, wood carving, weaving and embroidery, with makers working in the cells around the courtyard. ## Best neighborhoods in Bukhara The old town crosses in twenty minutes on foot, but it is not uniform. Four quarters worth naming. 1. **Lyabi-Hauz** (Pool and teahouses · Central): The social centre: the pool, the teahouses, three madrasas and the mulberry trees. Where the old town eats, and the easiest base to sleep in. 2. **Poi Kalyan and the bazaar street** (Monuments and shops · Central): The monumental spine, running from the minaret through the trading domes. Busiest between ten and four and almost silent at dawn. 3. **The Jewish quarter** (Historic quarter · South of Lyabi-Hauz): Bukharan Jews lived in these lanes south of Lyabi-Hauz for centuries and gave the city its own dialect. The synagogue on Sarrafon Street still functions. 4. **Registan and the Ark** (Citadel and parks · West): The western end: the citadel, the square in front of it, Bolo Hauz across the road, and the Samanid park beyond. Quieter, greener and where the museums cluster. ## Best day trips in Bukhara Four places within an easy taxi ride, all of them Silk Road rather than scenery. 1. **Chor Bakr Necropolis** (5 km west · 2 hours · Sumitan): A city of the dead five kilometres west at Sumitan, built for the Juybar sheikhs in the sixteenth century, with storks nesting on the minaret. 2. **Gijduvan** (45 km · half day · Gijduvan): A town 45 km northeast and the home of a ceramics school run by one family for generations, working the yellow-green glaze that marks its pottery. 3. **Vobkent Minaret** (Late 12th century · Vobkent): A late twelfth-century Karakhanid minaret standing alone in a town northeast of Bukhara. A slimmer, plainer cousin of the Kalyan. 4. **Varakhsha** (Pre-Islamic ruins · North-west): The excavated palace of the Bukhar Khudats, the rulers who preceded the Arab conquest, out in the desert northwest. The wall paintings are in museums now. ## Festivals & annual events in Bukhara (2026) - **New Year** (1 January): A public holiday and the one winter date when the old town has any crowd. Museums and monuments keep short hours around it. - **International Women’s Day** (8 March): A public holiday taken seriously across Uzbekistan. Offices and many shops close; the monuments stay open. - **Navruz** (21 March): The Persian new year and the biggest date in the Uzbek calendar, marked with concerts, family visits and sumalak. - **Ramadan Hayit (Eid al-Fitr)** (Moves with the lunar calendar): A public holiday closing the fasting month. Restaurants keep normal hours through Ramadan, but the shrine is at its busiest. - **Day of Remembrance and Honour** (9 May): A public holiday for the war dead, with wreath-laying at the memorials. A quiet civic day rather than a festival. - **Silk and Spices Festival** (Late May or early June): Bukhara's own festival: craft fairs across the old town, ikat and suzani stalls, folk music and a closing concert. - **Qurbon Hayit (Eid al-Adha)** (Moves with the lunar calendar): The feast of sacrifice, a public holiday and the second of the two big religious dates. Expect full trains and full guesthouses. - **Independence Day** (1 September): Uzbekistan marks 1991 with concerts and fireworks. Bukhara stages its events on the squares before the main monuments. ## Must-try dishes in Bukhara, Uzbekistan - **Bukharan plov**: The regional version of the national dish: rice, mutton, carrot and onion in a kazan, with chickpeas. - **Shashlik**: Skewers grilled over charcoal at the front of half the restaurants in the old town. - **Lagman**: Hand-pulled noodles under a peppery mutton and vegetable sauce. Ordered as soup or fried; fried suits summer. - **Manti**: Large steamed dumplings of minced lamb and onion, served with sour cream. Four or five to a plate. - **Samsa**: Baked, not fried: the pastry is slapped onto a tandoor wall and comes out blistered, with lamb inside. - **Bukharan non**: The round flatbread stamped with a chekich before baking. Every region has its own pattern. - **Shurpa**: A clear mutton broth with whole potatoes, carrot and chickpeas, poured over the meat. A cold-day dish. - **Halva**: Bukhara sells its own dense sesame halva by weight in the trading domes, alongside nishalda for Navruz. ## Bukhara transport & airports - **Bukhara International Airport** (BHK): A small airport about 5 km east of the centre. The core of the schedule is the Tashkent shuttle, with a few routes to Istanbul, Moscow and the Gulf. Fifteen minutes by taxi. [Uzbekistan Airways](https://www.uzairways.com/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - **Afrosiyob high-speed rail** (Rail): The fastest way in. Afrosiyob trains run from Tashkent via Samarkand in just under four hours, and from Samarkand in about 90 minutes. Book well ahead: seats sell out. [Book tickets](https://eticket.railway.uz/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - **Getting in from the station** (Bus): Trains do not stop in Bukhara itself. The station is at Kogon, 15 km southeast, and the transfer is a 20-minute taxi or a marshrutka. The minibuses stop by early evening. - **Taxis and getting around** (Taxi): The old town is walkable end to end and largely closed to cars, so walking is the transport. For the summer palace and the shrines, use Yandex Go: it works here and prices in advance. ## Bukhara at a glance - **Country:** Uzbekistan - **Region:** Bukhara Region (Buxoro viloyati), south-central Uzbekistan - **Population:** About 280,000 in the city, around 2.0 million in Bukhara Region (2024) - **Founded:** Settled for well over 2,000 years; historic centre listed by UNESCO in 1993 - **Nickname:** Bukhoro-i-Sharif, Noble Bukhara - **Language:** Uzbek and Tajik, with Russian widely spoken - **Currency:** Uzbek som (UZS) - **Time zone:** Uzbekistan Time (UTC+5), no daylight saving - **Calling code:** +998 65 - **Airports:** Bukhara International (BHK), about 5 km east - **Power:** 220V · plug types C and F - **Emergency:** 112 unified · Fire 101 · Police 102 · Ambulance 103 ## Interesting facts - The Kalyan Minaret was finished in 1127 and stands 45.6 metres tall. Genghis Khan sacked Bukhara in 1220 and left the tower standing. - The Samanid Mausoleum survived the Mongols because it had already vanished: flood silt buried it, and it was dug out in the last century. - Ulugbek built his Bukhara madrasa in 1417, before the more famous one in Samarkand. It is the oldest surviving madrasa in Central Asia. - Mir-i-Arab, begun in the 1530s, kept teaching through most of the Soviet period as one of a handful of madrasas permitted in the USSR. - Bukhara was watered by canals feeding open reservoirs called hauz. Most were filled in the 1920s and 1930s; Lyabi-Hauz is the last big one. ## Bukhara travel FAQ ### How many days do you need in Bukhara? Two full days cover the old town without rushing: one for Poi Kalyan, the trading domes and Lyabi-Hauz, one for the Ark, Bolo Hauz and the Samanid Mausoleum. A third day buys the summer palace at Sitorai Mokhi Khosa, the Naqshbandi shrine and the Chor Bakr necropolis, which all sit outside the city. ### Is Bukhara or Samarkand better? They answer different questions. Samarkand has the larger monuments and the Registan, but they stand as set pieces in a modern city. Bukhara kept the whole medieval town around its monuments, so the lanes, pools and bazaars still connect them. Most people who see both prefer Bukhara for atmosphere and Samarkand for scale. ### Do you need a visa for Uzbekistan? Citizens of more than 90 countries, including the EU, the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea, enter visa-free for up to 30 days. Everyone else applies for the e-visa online before travelling at e-visa.gov.uz. Check your own nationality before booking, as the list has been widened repeatedly. ### When is the best time to visit Bukhara? April to early June and September to October. Bukhara sits on the edge of the Kyzylkum desert: July averages daily highs above 32°C and can pass 39°C, and the old town has almost no shade. Winter is cold and can be snowy, but the monuments are empty and the light is good. ### How do you get from Tashkent to Bukhara? The Afrosiyob high-speed train is the sensible option, running via Samarkand in just under four hours and booked online at the national railway site up to 45 days ahead. Flying to Bukhara airport takes about an hour in the air but adds two transfers. Trains arrive at Kogon, 15 km outside the city. ## Nearby guides - [Khiva](https://wimup.com/city/khiva.md): Uzbekistan · 10 picks - [Dushanbe](https://wimup.com/city/dushanbe.md): Tajikistan · 10 picks - [Tashkent](https://wimup.com/city/tashkent.md): Uzbekistan · 10 picks - [All of Asia →](https://wimup.com/asia): 101 cities Part of the [Uzbekistan guide](https://wimup.com/country/uzbekistan.md) · [Asia](https://wimup.com/asia.md) ## Sources - [Bukhara tourism board](https://uzbekistan.travel/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Bukhara International Airport: Uzbekistan Airways](https://www.uzairways.com/en?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Afrosiyob high-speed rail: Book tickets](https://eticket.railway.uz/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.