Registan Square

The most beautiful square of the East

Registan is the heart of Samarkand. On three sides stand three huge madrasas (ancient universities), decorated with blue, gold and turquoise tiles. The oldest was built 600 years ago by the great scientist Mirzo Ulugh Beg — stars were studied there! The portal of the Sher-Dor madrasa shows lions and a sun.

Registan ('sandy place') is the central square of Samarkand, an ensemble of three madrasas: the Ulugh Beg Madrasa (1417–1420), a centre of learning in the Timurid era where Ulugh Beg himself taught astronomy and mathematics; Sher-Dor (1619–1636), whose portal shows living creatures — rare in Islamic art (tiger-lions and a sun with a face); and Tilla-Kari (1646–1660), a mosque-madrasa with a gilded interior. The ensemble is the pinnacle of Central Asian architecture: glazed tiles, muqarnas, girih patterns. Samarkand joined the UNESCO list in 2001 as a 'Crossroads of Cultures'. In Soviet times engineers straightened a leaning minaret.

Fun facts

• Astronomy was taught at the Ulugh Beg Madrasa 600 years ago — the world's first 'space university'!
• The 'lion' on the Sher-Dor portal is actually a tiger — with a sun-face behind it.
• In 1932 a leaning minaret was 'straightened' with a special mechanism.