Sheikhantaur Complex

Sheikh Khovendi at-Tahur

The complex grew around the grave of the Sufi Sheikh Khovendi at-Tahur (Sheikhantaur), born in the late 13th century in Bogiston near today's Charvak. A sayyid of Quraysh descent, he followed the teachings of Khoja Ahmad Yasawi, wandered the cities of Transoxiana and settled in Tashkent, where he died around 1360. His name later passed to one of the four quarters of old Tashkent and to today's district.

The mausoleum dates from the 14th century but has been altered many times: a small brick building with dark-blue majolica and a tall dome, sheathed in metal since its 19th-century restoration, from whose interior an ancient tree trunk seems to sprout. Notable figures of Tashkent's history, among them Yunus Khoja, are buried in the surrounding cemetery.

Kaldirgach Biy Mausoleum

Just north stands the Kaldirgach Biy Mausoleum, built in the first half of the 15th century and among the oldest surviving monuments in Tashkent. Its pyramidal tent dome on a tall twelve-sided drum is unusual in Uzbekistan; the scholar Galina Pugachenkova linked the form to the funerary buildings of steppe nomads. The 16th-century historian Hafiz-i Tanish called Kaldirgach Biy a ruler of Moghulistan and an ancestor of Khoja Ahrar, while other legends identify him with the Kazakh judge Tole Bi. The third monument, Yunus Khan's mausoleum, has its own entry.