Visiting the town of Zharkent.

«Memory is the treasure house of the mind wherein the monuments thereof are kept and preserved»

Thomas Fuller.

Free Guided Walking Tours in Kazakhstan.

The construction of the mosque started in 1887, and Yuldashev spent what was at the time the enormous sum of 300,000 gold roubles on it, making him a considerable patron of the arts as well as a successful merchant.
The mosque - a meeting point for Central Asian and Chinese architecture - is most unusual. The main material used in the construction was wood - beams made of Tian Shan firs which arrived in Zharkent from the Aksu and Ketmen mountains, travelling 200 kilometres on bullock carts.
When the clay for the foundations was brought in, the whole populations of Zharkent and nearby villages were drafted in to knead it. Only after the clay became as hard as rock was it laid as the foundations of the mosque.
Wisely steered by the Chinese architect, 75 carpenters worked tirelessly for several years. We can still admire the results today: the mosques frame consists of 122 wooden posts linked via a special system of joints and beams.
No nails or iron bolts were sed in the building, just as Yuldashev had stipulated. It took only one summer to build and assemble the main wooden frame of the mosque, but it wasn't until 1892 that construction was completed and the mosque opened.
The exterior boasts features such as a soaring roof.

Authorship:
Magazine “Tengri” 2, 2008.