Qaynar Sardoba

History

The cistern, also called Qaynargumbaz, stands on a terrace above the right bank of the Akhangaran over a spring of the same name. In the 18th and 19th centuries a busy caravan road between Tashkent and the Fergana Valley passed this way, and caravans halted at the spring. Together with a neighbouring rabat, or caravanserai, the sardoba formed a single complex.

Local tradition credits one of the Kokand khans — Madali Khan or Malla Khan — with building it. Mikhail Masson, who studied the site in 1929 and 1934, dated the rabat to the late Kokand period but thought the domed rotunda might be older. Today only the lower part of the dome survives, and the caravanserai has almost vanished.