Contact
Address
Registon ko'chasi, Samarkand, Uzbekistan
GPS: 39.655392758035, 66.976934135466
Travel info for visiting the Registan Uzbekistan: The Registan is located in the city of Samarkand, also known as the “Pearl of the East”. This place of Uzbekistan is at the crossroads of several cultures and major trade routes. It was notably part of the traditional Silk Road connecting China to the Mediterranean Basin with the other Uzbek cities of Bukhara and Khiva. In the imagination of travelers, the Registan and Samarkand always reason as mythical places among the most renowned in Central Asia.
The Place of Registan (“Sandy Place” in Persian) represents the historic centre of life of the ancient city of Samarkand, a land close to the highly coveted desert. Founded by the Sogdian civilization or the Achaemenid dynasty before them, it passes in turn into the hands of the king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon Alexander the Great (4th century BC) so as Persians, Arabs, Turks and then Chinese in the Middle Ages. In the 13th century, the city was conquered by the first Great Khan and Emperor of the Mongol Empire Genghis Khan. The next century, it was restored by the conqueror Tamerlane (or Timur) who made Samarkand the capital of the Timurid Empire in 1370. Throughout his 35 years of reign, Tamerlane works to make Samarkand the most beautiful city in the world by developing the artistic technique of mosaic on the facades, walls and interior of buildings. It finances its architectural projects thanks to tolls levied on commercial caravans travelling on the Silk Road. It was at this time that the city reached its peak, in the 14th and 15th centuries, before being invaded by the Turko-Mongol dynasty of the Shaybanids (descendants of Genghis Khan) and losing its influence. Samarkand has always been the object of various influences and constitutes a hotbed of very diverse religions or beliefs bordering on the Western world, the East and Asia.
From an architectural point of view, the Registan contains the most beautiful heritage of the Timurid dynasty. It is distinguished by the three imposing madrasahs (theological schools and Islamic universities founded from the 15th to the 17th centuries) where the greatest scholars of the time are teaching. The Registan serves as a public place where the inhabitants meet to attend royal proclamations, civil executions and celebration of major events. This staggering trio of monuments that face each other is composed of the Ulugh Beg Madrasah (the oldest), the Sher-Dor Madrasah (with its facade of tiger mosaics) and the Tilya-Kori Madrasah (generously decorated with gold).