The Guidebook on architectural places of interest of Samarkand.

“I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers” 

Langston Hughes.

Special excursion in Samarkand.

The bridge was built in the early XVI century on the orders of Muhammad Shaybani-Khan, the founder of the Shaybanid dynasty, which ruled in Bukhara and Khiva. Earlier this place was occupied by an ancient bridge, built in V - VI century and later it was rebuilt by Amir Timur.
In the middle of the XV century the bridge was destroyed by mudflow (natural mountain stream). According to legend, Shaybani, once again barely moving across the river, gave the order to build a new bridge.
Specially for this purpose built a dam that blocked a river Zarafshan. To date, bridge has only one arch left.
Because it is almost impossible to determine how long the bridge was, and how much was arches. It is assumed that the bridge was a length of 200 meters, consisting of seven arches. It is also unknown when and under what circumstances the bridge started to collapse.
Engineer Bogoslovsky, sent as part of the diplomatic mission of Tsarist Russia to Bukhara in 1841, wrote in his diary that he saw this bridge has already been destroyed, though with three arches.
It is assumed that the earthquake of 1886 and 1898 destroyed one arch, owing to what today, of the once grandiose buildings were only one arch. Arch is preserved on a solid Foundation, stood for five centuries and according to forecasts, will stand as much again.
The bridge draws its amazing technical solution. In a time when cement was not yet in sight, Samarkand, the architects managed to create a solution, the most similar to modern cement. In different places, depending on the degree of contact with water, used plaster, lime and plant ash.

Authority:
«Religious and spiritual monuments of the Central Asia». The author of M. Khashimov. Publishing house "Saga", 2001. The collection «Architectural and archeologic monuments of Uzbekistan», "Saga:, 2003. «Samarkand. The directory-guidebook Authors I.Umnyakov, Yu.Alekserov. Arapov A.V. Samarkand "Masterpieces of the Central Asia". Publishing house «Mass-media-ASIA San’at» 2008. Arapov A.V. «Samarkand. The guidebook "Publishing house  mass-media-ASIA San’at» 2007.