Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi

The great mausoleum Temur began but never finished

Amir Temur built this mausoleum for the great poet and saint of the Turkic peoples, Ahmed Yasawi. Its dome is 39 metres — the largest brick dome in Central Asia! Inside stands a huge bronze cauldron weighing 2 tonnes, a gift from Temur. But Temur died in 1405 and the gateway was left undecorated — and so it remains today. It stands in the city of Turkistan in Kazakhstan.

Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (1093–1166) wrote the 'Divan-i Hikmet', founded the Yasawiyya Sufi order and was among the first Sufis to write in a Turkic language. The mausoleum was built in 1389–1405 by Temur's order (in the town of Yasi): 46.5 × 65.5 m, main dome 39 m (18.2 m across — the largest in Central Asia), 35 rooms; double-shell domes, an early model of Timurid architecture whose masters and solutions were later used in Samarkand. Inside is the Taikazan (1399, Tabriz craftsmen, 2 t, an alloy of 7 metals) — kept in the Hermitage 1935–1989. The portal was never decorated because of Temur's death (scaffolding holes remain). Kazakh khans (Abulkhair, Ablai) are buried here; in the 16th–19th centuries the Kazakh Khanate's capital lay nearby. Kazakhstan's first UNESCO site (2003). A million pilgrims a year (the 'little Mecca').

Fun facts

• The mausoleum's 39 m dome is the largest brick dome in Central Asia.
• The 2-tonne cauldron inside was cast from an alloy of 7 metals.
• The portal has stayed unfinished for 600 years — Temur died.