Individual lasting many days tours over monuments of Bukhara area.

“For everything in this journey of life we are on, there is a right wing and a left wing: for the wing of love there is anger; for the wing of destiny there is fear; for the wing of pain there is healing; for the wing of hurt there is forgiveness; for the wing of pride there is humility; for the wing of giving there is taking; for the wing of tears there is joy; for the wing of rejection there is acceptance; for the wing of judgment there is grace; for the wing of honor there is shame; for the wing of letting go there is the wing of keeping. We can only fly with two wings and two wings can only stay in the air if there is a balance. Two beautiful wings is perfection. There is a generation of people who idealize perfection as the existence of only one of these wings every time. But I see that a bird with one wing is imperfect. An angel with one wing is imperfect. A butterfly with one wing is dead. So this generation of people strive to always cut off the other wing in the hopes of embodying their ideal of perfection, and in doing so, have created a crippled race” 

C. JoyBell C.

The Great Silk Road from Bukhara to Samarkand.

60 km to the south-west of Bukhara there is an ancient settlement covering about 20 hectares. There until the middle of the XI century. there was a large merchant city Paikend, or Lower City. The name is associated with the location of the city in the lower reaches of the Zeravshan on the western border of Sogd.
In the 5th - 8th centuries, Paikend was the richest city in Bukhara. Already with Ephtalitis in V c. Along with Samarkand, Paikend became one of the main trade centers on the Great Silk Road. Every spring in spring almost the entire male population of the city went away for six months with a huge caravan to the borders of China.
The fact that the Iranian commander Bahram Chubin’s siege of Paykend at the end of the 6th century ended with peace was one of the bloody wars of the Turkic kagans and Iranian shahs. Paikend obeyed the Arabs together with Bukhara in the first decades of the VIII century.
The Arabs destroyed the city, seizing vast wealth and capturing the inhabitants. The gold and silver statues of Paikend's pagan idols were melted into ingots and sent to the court of the Khalif. Merchants who returned from caravans from China bought part of the townspeople and rebuilt the town.
The city-forming center of Paykend was a citadel of 90 x 90 m in size, the first settlements on the territory of which date back to BC In the early Middle Ages there was a palace of the ruler, as well as temples and administrative buildings.
Two shakhristans adjoined the citadel: the first with an area of ​​12 hectares, inhabited with hephthalites, and the second with an area of ​​7 hectares, formed by the beginning of the VIth century. Medieval Paikend, including both shakhristans, was surrounded by fortress walls with towers every 60 m.
To the north of the settlement was a necropolis with Zoroastrian burial structures. Under the Samanids, the city restored the position of a major trade and craft center, rivaling Bukhara. Dozens of new caravanserais appeared around him.
On the citadel of the city, remains of the XIth century Juma mosque were discovered, the minaret of which, judging by the base, was larger than the Kalyan minaret in Bukhara. In the XIth century, due to the shallowing of Zeravshan, Paikend ceased to be supplied with water and fell into neglect.
For thousands of years the city was swallowed up by the desert, which kept it to this day. In the XXth century, Paikend, rediscovered by archaeologists, received the name "Pompeii of Asia." Visitors to Bukhara often ask about her origins, the very first settlements in and around the city.
Today we are fortunate to be able to deliver more than verbal explanations by proposing a half day or day trip to the archaeological site Paykend, where the historically interested through their own eyes and with some imagination gain an understanding of the ancient culture that prevailed here.
The foundations of Paykent go back to a citadel erected in the IX century BC. Its walls were 5m thick and excavations have revealed that more belt walls were added over time. Defense towers stood tall every 50m, the city was thought to be unconquerable.
The fortress town was famous not only for its invincibility but for its womenfolk as well. While their men were out on military campaigns, on warfare, the women were in charge and known to manage with a strong hand.
Situated right along the emerging caravan route leading from China and India to Persia, Syria and beyond, Paykend flourished into an important trading post of Sogdiana in the VII century. Its citizens were reputed merchants and Paykend was referred to as "city of buyers".
The wealth generated from buying and selling triggered demand for the finest in applied arts and architecture, thus the most skilled crafts masters able to satisfy the refined taste of her inhabitants settled in Paykend.
Coin minting, ceramics, murals, perfume flasks, jewelry, bronze and copper vessels, glass ware can now be admired in the new museum adjacent to the archaeological site. Paykend was destroyed in 706 BC by the conquering Arabs and the nearby settlements slowly perished until in the IXX century the lack of water turned the last dwellers away.
The Mayor's office Hokimiat of Paykend together with the Museum Ark in Bukhara has plans to build an Open Air Museum complete with Caravan-serai to accommodate scientists and visitors from all over the world and to establish an education and training center.
Every summer, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Institute of Oriental Studies in Rome conduct archaeological excavations so on your visit, you may be privileged to receive explanations by a world renowned authority on the subject of ancient civilizations along The Great Silk Road.

Authority:
http://www.discovery-central-asia.com