Narpay District

Setting and nature

Narpay District lies in the west of the region, between the Kattakurgan and Paxtachi districts. It covers just 442 km² yet holds over 235,000 people, more than 530 per square kilometre, making it one of the most densely settled districts in the region. The Zarafshan runs along its northern edge, while to the south rise the Ziyovuddin and Zirabuloq hills, beyond which the Karnab steppe begins. The climate is sharply continental, averaging −2 °C in January and 27 °C in July, with only about 200 mm of rain a year.

The district's lifeline is the ancient Narpay canal, which draws water from the Karadarya. Nearly 110 km long, it feeds more than 370 branch ditches irrigating over 42,000 ha in Narpay, Paxtachi and Kattakurgan. It also gave the district its name: Arabic nahr (canal) plus Persian pay (end), 'the end of the canal'. The limestone hills hide caves; in Gunjak cave on Turitog a domed chamber some 20 m across is hung with stalactites and stalagmites.

History

The district was created on 29 September 1926. Its centre, Oqtosh (Aktash), was long known as Zirabuloq and became a town in 1967; the railway station still bears the old name. On 2 (14) June 1868, on the Zerabulak heights nearby, General Kaufman's troops routed the army of Emir Muzaffar, a defeat that turned the Emirate of Bukhara into a Russian vassal. The artist Nikolai Karazin fought in the battle and later painted it.

Narpay is the homeland of the bard Islam Shoir Nazar-ogli (1874–1953), born in the village of Gallakassob, a pupil of Ergash Jumanbulbul-ogli and famous for the epic Orzigul. Shrines abound. In the village of Kok-Ota lies Said Ahmad Nasafi, who moved here from Kasan in 1455, beside a Friday mosque with a minaret and a pool shaded by plane trees. The 19th-century three-domed Khojakarzon-Ota mausoleum is wrapped in local legend, and the town of Mirbozor keeps its Salovat mosque of 1890.

Economy

Narpay has long grown cotton, grain and silk cocoons. Today two large textile mills operate here, 564 ha on the Qoratog ridge are earmarked for building-materials production, and an industrial zone is planned around Zirabuloq station. The district has 20,400 ha of irrigated land, and four mahallas are planting apple, plum and cherry orchards under the 'one mahalla, one product' scheme. The Mirbozor market complex in the district centre serves around 50,000 people.

Getting there

Oqtosh is about 110 km from Samarkand, 1.5–2 hours by car along the M-37 towards Navoi and Bukhara. The district's railway station is Zirabuloq. Local taxis reach the Kok-Ota and Khojakarzon shrines; Gunjak cave should only be entered with an experienced guide.