Day 3

 ARK CITADEL

The Ark is a large earthen fortification located in the northwestern part of contemporary Bukhara. In layout, it resembles a modified rectangle, a little elongated from the west to the east. The perimeter of the external walls is 789.6 m (2,591 ft), the area enclosed being 3.96 ha (9.8 acres).

The ceremonial entrance into the citadel is architecturally framed by two 18th-century towers. The upper parts of the towers are connected by a gallery, rooms, and terraces. A gradually rising ramp leads through a winch-raised portal and a covered long corridor to the mosque of Dzhuma. The covered corridor offers access to storerooms and prison cells. In the center of the Ark is located a large complex of buildings, one of the best-preserved being the mosque of Ul'dukhtaron, which is connected to legends of forty girls tortured and cast into a well. 

Nowadays, there is Bukhara State Museum, which includes: the department of numismatics and epigraphy, which has existed since 1987, the department of modern history and ethnography, here are stored 36 000 exhibits, the exhibition "Written Monuments", and the department of Bukhara nature is one of the oldest departments of the museum, which has been functioning since 1951.