Lyabi-Hauz Ensemble
A seventeenth-century pond ringed by a madrasah, a khanqah and mulberry trees — still the city's favourite meeting place.
About this complex
The Lyabi-Hauz Ensemble is a remarkable historic urban space in central Bukhara, formed mainly during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries around a large reservoir. Its name means "by the pond", and the water is what holds the ensemble together: the Kukeldash Madrasah on one side, the Nadir Divan-Begi Khanqah and Madrasah on the others, and old mulberry trees leaning over the edge.
Unlike Poi-Kalyan, this was never a purely ceremonial square. People came here for water, for study, for shade and for company — and they still do.
Gallery
Monuments in this complex
Kukeldash Madrasah
Built in 1568–1569, the oldest and largest building of the Lyabi-Hauz ensemble.
Nadir Divan-Begi Khanqah
A Sufi lodge of about 1619, built to house travelling dervishes on the west side of the pond.
Nadir Divan-Begi Madrasah
Famous for the two simurgh birds on its portal — an image that should not, by strict tradition, be there at all.
Lyabi-Hauz Reservoir
The pond the whole ensemble is named after — once part of Bukhara's water supply, now its living room.
Khoja Nasreddin Monument
The wise fool on his donkey, cast in bronze in 1979 — the most photographed hand in Bukhara.