Lab-i Hauz

Listen first. Water laps softly against old stone steps. Teacups clink on low wooden platforms. Leaves rustle overhead in the mulberry trees, and their shade falls in dappled patches across the paving. After the dry heat of Bukhara's lanes, this square feels cooler, slower, almost private. You are standing at Lab-i Hauz. The name roughly means 'by the pool' or 'at the edge of the pool.' For centuries, this has been one of the places where the city comes to sit, talk, and breathe.

Look at the water itself. The pool is a long rectangle, edged with stone steps that drop toward the surface. Bukhara once had many pools like this one. A hauz was a reservoir fed by canals, and people used it for drinking, washing, and cooling the air around them. In a desert city, water meant life. This pool was built in the early seventeenth century, and it is one of the few that survived into the present day.

Why did so few survive? Here is something many visitors never hear. The old pools were also a source of disease. Still water carried parasites, and residents suffered from a painful illness spread through it. In the early Soviet decades, the authorities drained and filled in most of the city's reservoirs. Whole squares changed shape. Lab-i Hauz was kept, and today it is one of the last places where you can picture how the old city once looked around its water.

The man behind this square was Nadir Divan-Begi. He served as a high official, a kind of vizier, under the ruler Imam Quli Khan. Around 1620 he paid for the pool and for buildings on its edges. This was a common way for powerful men to show piety and status at the same time. They built something useful for the public, and their name stayed attached to it. Four hundred years later, his name is still spoken here every day.

Now turn toward the building on the western side, across the water. This is the Nadir Divan-Begi Khanaka. A khanaka was a lodge for Sufi dervishes, members of Islam's mystical tradition, who gathered for prayer and shelter. Notice its tall entrance portal, with a deep arch set into a flat facade. Inside, travellers and pilgrims once found rest. The building faces the pool directly, so its reflection often lies on the water on calm mornings.

On the eastern side stands the Nadir Divan-Begi Madrasah, and this is where the biggest surprise waits. Look up at the tiles above the main arch. You will see two large birds with spread wings, flying toward a sun with a human face. Between them run white deer. Islamic religious buildings usually avoid images of living creatures. Here, they are on full display, in turquoise, yellow, and white. Many people read the birds as the simurgh, a mythical bird from Persian legend.

There is a popular story about this madrasah, and locals enjoy telling it. Legend has it that the building was first meant to be a caravanserai, an inn for travelling merchants. At the opening, the khan supposedly praised it as a fine madrasah, a religious school. An official could not contradict his ruler. So, the story goes, the inn became a school. Historians debate the details, but the layout does feel different from many other madrasahs in the city.

Now face north, toward the largest building on the square. This is the Kukeldash Madrasah, and it is older than the pool. It dates from the sixteenth century, from the era of the Shaybanid dynasty, the rulers who governed Bukhara before Imam Quli Khan's line. It is one of the biggest madrasahs in Central Asia. Its long brick walls are lined with rows of small cells, where students once lived and studied for years at a time.

Stand back and compare the three buildings. You will see the same basic language repeated — the high portal, the pointed arch, the tiled panels, the warm brown brick. Yet each one has its own proportions and its own mood. Together they frame the pool on three sides. This kind of grouping, with several monuments facing a shared open space, is a classic idea in Central Asian city planning. The open space matters as much as the walls.

Now look for a smaller figure among the trees. A bronze statue shows a man in a turban, riding a donkey and raising one hand in greeting. This is Khoja Nasreddin, the wise fool of stories told from Turkey to China. In these tales, he wins arguments with judges, rulers, and neighbours through clever nonsense. Children climb near him, and adults pose for photographs. The statue is modern, but the stories behind it are centuries old.

Look at the trees around the pool. These old mulberries are gnarled and thick, with trunks that twist and split. Some have been supported by props to keep them standing. Mulberry trees have deep roots in this region, because their leaves fed the silkworms behind the silk trade that passed through Bukhara. Their shade made the pool edge a natural meeting place. On a hot afternoon, the air beneath them is noticeably cooler than the open street.

The square is not only a monument. It is a working social space. Around the water, teahouses set out wooden platforms with low tables. People sit cross-legged or on benches, drinking green tea from small bowls. In the evenings, lights come on around the pool and families arrive for a stroll. A few steps away begin the old trading domes and the lanes of the historic Jewish quarter. Lab-i Hauz sits at the meeting point of all these worlds.

Before you leave, find a spot near the water and stay still for a minute. Watch the reflections of the portals shift as the breeze moves the surface. Listen to the voices at the tables and the scrape of chairs. This pool was built for water, but it has outlived its purpose and found a new one. As you walk away, look back once. The square will keep its quiet shape long after you have gone.