The Hisar Fortress, located south of the city of Hisar, about 20 kilometres from Dushanbe, is one of Tajikistan’s main historical sites. The site, which is very old and has been inhabited for a long time, is now a museum with heavily renovated walls.

Credit : Pierre-Armand Dussex (nomadsland.travel, Switzerland)

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Kyrk Kyz Kala is a fortress that forms part of a group of fortifications very close to the Ayaz Kala site, which was once part of a large suburban complex. The fortress was probably built around the 4th century BCE, after the Achaemenid Persian Empire lost control of the region. It may have been abandoned afterwards, but was reused during the Kushan period (30-375) and again from the 7th or 8th century onwards.
Kyrk Kyz means “forty girls”, but no one knows who they were.

Credit : Hubert-Felix Delattre (France)

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The Khwarazm region, in the lower valley of the Amu Darya, was known in ancient times as the ‘oasis of fifty fortresses’. Of these fortresses, built over a very long period, perhaps the best known are those at Ayaz-Kala. There are three on this site.
Ayaz-Kala 1, built between the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, is located on a hill overlooking Ayaz-Kala 2, which dates from the 6th to 8th centuries AD.

Credits: Isabelle Vincent (France)

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Konya Ark, the old fortress, doesn’t look its age. Built in 1686-1688 and remodelled at the very beginning of the 19th century, it now has a smooth face thanks to very recent restoration work. Konya Ark is one of the outstanding monuments of Itchan Kala, the old town of Khiva. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city has been the subject of tense negotiations for years between defenders of its historic heritage and the tourism and property industries.

Credits : Laura (@lauramacchiata, Spain)

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Less well known than other fortresses in the Kyzylkum desert of Karakalpakstan, such as Ayaz-Kala or Toprak-Kala, the clay fortress of Janpik-Kala has nothing to envy them in terms of conservation or the beauty of the site.

Credits : Isabelle Vincent (France)

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The sun sets on the ramparts of Khiva in Uzbekistan.

Photo: Hubert-Félix Delattre (France)

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The 1400-year-old stone fort of Tashkurgan in Xinjiang next to the border with Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is located on the road connecting the middle and southern main silk roads together at an altitude of more than 3000 meters.Credit: Editorial Find all of our photos of the day here.

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Walls of the Ark, historic fortress located within the historic core of Bukhara in Uzbekistan that served as the residence of the emirs of Bukhara for centuries.

Credit: Konstantin Novaković (Serbia)

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The ruins of the fortress Gyaur Kala are located on the outskirts of Nukus, in western Uzbekistan. The fortress was probably built in the 4th century B.C. at a crossing of important trade routes.

Credit: Simon Kretschmer (Germany)

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The fortress “Chilpik Kala” is on the way from Nukus to Urgench. Originally it was a Zoroastrian burial place. The dead were brought here so that the sun and birds could decompose the corpse. The stairs were built in 2019 to make the fortress more accessible to visitors.

Credit : Simon Kretschmer (Germany)

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Directly next to the fortress Gyaur Kala at the edge of Nukus, in western Uzbekistan, there is the cemetery Mizdakhan, which dates back to pre-Islamic times. The mosque, whose ruin can be seen here in the picture, is said to have been built by Adam according to legend. When the last stone falls to the ground, the end of the world is said to have come – so believers pile up the stones to towers again to delay the end of the world even further.

Credit: Simon Kretschmer (Germany)

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