Tours to Kunya-Urgench.

Sightseeing trip in Old Kunya-Urgench.

The ancient settlement of Gurgandzha - Dashkala - represents the wrong, enclosed with a deep ditch and a high shaft polygon. The destroyed wall from a burned brick is its cornerstone. In the territory of Dashkala there are ruins known under the name "Caravanserai Gate", the remains of a minaret of Mamun and Dzhuma mosque.
The fragment of "Caravanserai gate" - peshtak - from outer side is covered with a decor from figured carved bricks, natural beige color with patten inserts of blue, white and turquoise colors. Most of researchers agree in opinion that this peshtak is too magnificent for a caravanserai and, most likely, the palace possessed Khorezm shakh or to large madrasah.
Only the fact that it was purposefully destroyed by Tamerlan is known, and around the escaped portal the caravanserai is built up later. The ancient settlement Dashkala continued to exist during the Mongolian, timurids and after Timurids  periods.
In the XIXth century Urgench revived, not that, former, brilliant Urgench that was the capital of Khwarezm in 1097 - 1220 which possession during this period stretched from the Aral Sea and lower reaches of the Syr-Darya to the Persian Gulf in the south, from Pamir and to Iran in the West in the north, and just small settlement which added to the name a prefix Kunya.
There was it thanks to the fact that from Amu-Darya in 1836 the Russian engineers carried out the irrigation canal Khan-Yab. In the middle of the XIXth century the Khiva khan Muhammad Emin tried to transfer the capital of the state here and even began to put up fortress walls, but fell in battle with Turkmens, and everything in Kunya-Urgench stood again.
Its development began already at the Soviet power, in 1924. In 1986 the settlement of Kunya-Urgench received the status of the city. Its best-known object - Kutlug-Timur minaret (XIVth century) - the highest in Central Asia (60 m). On its top the spiral staircase from 145 steps conducts, it is possible to climb it to a mark in height of 51 m where the observation deck is equipped.

Authority:
On materials of information department of the State committee of Turkmenistan on tourism and sport. "Religious and spiritual monuments to Central Asia". Author M. Hashimov. Saga publishing house, 2001.