City of Uzgen
This ancient city of Kyrgyzstan was founded by the Turks in the 8th-9th centuries in the center of an oasis along the caravan route from Maverannahr to Eastern Turkestan on the right bank of the mountain river Kara-Darya. The ancient Uzgen was a powerful fortress with gates from which roads led to China, Samarkand, Kashgar, and in all directions of the Fergana Valley. Even at that time, the city had many brick buildings, an extensive network of water supply systems, canals, and reservoirs. Numerous sites of Saka tribes have been discovered on its territory.
In the 10th-12th centuries, Uzgen was the main city of Fergana, and this period marked its greatest flourishing. At that time, its area reached 12-15 square kilometers. However, from the 13th century, a decline began, and by the 15th century, Uzgen gradually turned into a kishlak, no longer mentioned among the wealthy centers of Fergana.
The medieval layout of the city has been preserved to this day in the winding streets and dead ends, in the densely built-up quarters with narrow courtyards. The center of the city remains the Uzgen Architectural Complex, built in the 11th-12th centuries. It includes a minaret and three mausoleums located in a row, tightly next to each other, built of fired brick with the use of ceramics, situated a hundred meters from it. The mausoleums are crowned with domes and decorated with portals, and their facades are richly ornamented with inscriptions and patterns, finely combining floral and geometric designs. The middle mausoleum has been preserved the least well — it is believed that it was built earlier than its neighbors for the burial of one of the first Karakhanids, Nasr-ibn-Ali.
The northern and southern mausoleums of the main facade feature rectangular portals — peshtaks, with entrance iwans decorated with pointed arches on columns. The facade plane has a clear structural scheme of bands of ornamentation and inscriptions. The mausoleums are decorated alongside patterned masonry and stucco carving with carved terracotta. The beauty and virtuosity of the inscriptions in the scripts of "flourishing kufi" and "naskh" — with exquisite floral arabesques "islami," star and cross ornaments filled with a stylized motif of winding vines, complex various weavings, and strict geometric patterns laid out in brick — "girihs" — are captivating.
It is in Uzgen that the second famous brick minaret is located — a characteristic cult building from the period of Muslim dominance of the Karakhanids. The first, as readers may recall, is near Ak-Beshim in the Chuy Valley — the Buran Tower.
The minaret is a centralized three-part structure consisting of an octagonal base, a cylindrical shaft, and a lantern-like top with arched openings. Looking at this perfect work of architectural art, one cannot help but marvel at the skill, mathematical training, and sense of beauty possessed by those who founded civilization in these lands. The Uzgen Architectural Complex is one of the most striking and remarkable monuments of antiquity in all of Central Asia.
There is much of interest awaiting tourists in the vicinity of Uzgen. Among the most ancient monuments here are the Karadar'ya settlement on the route between the city and the village of Kara-Kuldja (3rd century BC - 4th century AD) and the Shoro-Bashat settlement halfway between Uzgen and Jalal-Abad (4th century BC - 5th century AD).
As for modern Uzgen, today it is a small tourist center with a wide network of cultural, educational, and medical institutions. A dry milk factory has been built here, which also produces cheese, butter, and ice cream. The brewery has a workshop for bottling mineral water "Kara-Shoro."
