Khiva, Ichon-Kala: The city has the status of museum city since 1968: no vehicle in the intramural old city enclosed by a double adobe wall dating back to the 19th century. This fabulous Eastern city is more a rebuilt city than a restored one. The buildings are recent, 18th and 19th centuries. The buildingd I visited buildings were:

Bukhara: The city is located at the crossroads of the caravan trails in the middle of the desert. The temperature can reach 50°C. It is also a museum city with 360 mosques. It entered history in 1st century AD then in the 9th century it passed under the Samanides rules. Around 980 Avicenna, Ibn Sina, wrote his major work there the "Canon of medicine". Then the dynasties followed one another, Karakhanids, Timurids, Shaybanids until 1868, date of the joining to the Russian Empire. Bukhara has a very varied architecture according to its dynastic history.

The Labi- Hauz complex dates back to the Timurid time, it includes:
The Kudeldach medressa (1568): The largest in Bukhara, it has 160 student cells. The building was entirely decorated. The entrance gate has a double line of arcades.
The Divan-Beghi medressa (1622): It has neither a conference room, nor a library. Its interest lies in its outside decoration of birds and animals.
Khanaka of Divan-Beghi (1620): It is a monastery intended for dervish pilgrims.

The Magoki-Attari mosque (12th Century): Located above the level of the current street, the decoration of the brick frontage recalls the work made for the Samanid mausoleum.
The Ulughbek medressa (1417): It was built by Tamerlan's grandson, a great monarch, astronomer and poet. He had this written on the gate:
"The duty of any Moslem man and any Moslem woman is to aspire to knowledge"
The Abdulaziz Khan medressa (1652): Opposite the latter, its promoter wanted to exceed all that had been done before him in Central Asia.

The Poi-Kalian complex:
The Kalian minaret: 46 m high, it is the most beautiful of Central Asia.
The Kalian mosque: The prayer room has 208 pillars supporting 288 cupolas. It is the vastest of Central Asia, 10,000 people could listen to the Imam's sermon.
The Miri-Arab medressa (1530): It has 111 cells distributed around a square court with bevelled angles.

The Bal-Khaouz complex:
Ark: The citadel was built on the site of a former fortress. The monument dates back to the 16th century and was the Emirs' residence.
The Ball-Khaouz mosque: Built in 1712, it has an iwan with columns and a remarkable coffered ceiling.
The Ishmail Samani mausoleum: Built by Ismail for his father founder of the dynasty, it is the jewel of Bukhara. The fitting of cooked bricks simulates an object in basketwork.
The Tchachma Ayyub mausoleum: Built about 1380 by order of Tamerlan on a source that sprang when prophet Job struck the ground with his cane, it has different cupolas according to the time of contruction.
Sitorai Mokhi Khossa: This building was the Emir's summer palace.

Tchor Minor: This building remote in the city was built in 1807 at the entrance of a disappeared medressa. It is a cube flanked by four minarets with turquoise cupolas.

Berakshah: The city is a Zoroastrian old city built in the desert.

Samarkand: The arrival was around 6 p.m. at the "Samarkand" hotel magnificently located to take photos of the monuments in low angle light.

Registan, at Tamerlan's time, was the square where the caravans gathered arriving by six large avenues. Ulughbek had the medressas built in the 17th century to assume the cultural influence of the capital in Central Asia. The set is majestic:
The Shir Dar medressa: It stands of opposite the Ulughbek medressa. On its tympanum tigers are represented in the middle of an abundant floral decoration that give it its name.
The Tiliya Kari medressa: The last built medressa closes the Registan square. Its interest lies in its mosque whose cupola dominates the square and whose inside in white marble is decorated by paintings and gilding. Therefore its name, "covered with gold".
The Ulughbek medressa: It was the most important university in Central Asia and the most eminent teachers such as Kadi Zade Roumi, taught there. The tympanum of the monumental gate represents a stylized and spangled sky with two decorative minarets.

The Bibi Khanym mosque: Beyond the legend imputing the construction to the preferred wife of Tamerlan, it was really built by Tamerlan's order as back he came from the campaign in India subjugated by the mosque of Delhi. It was the vastest of its time. Tamerlan had craftsmen come from all the conquered areas. The gate opens on a yard with four iwans with an engraved marble lectern in its centre. The cupolas of the minarets and of the mosque are covered by glazed bricks of turquoise colour.

Gour Emir: The Timurid mausoleum was built by Tamerlan's order at his grandson's death, Mohamed Sultan. Finished in 1409, it received the remains of Tamerlan and Mohamed Sultan. The mausoleum was closed due to restoration.
I visited Gour Emir at the time of my tour to Kyrgyzstan in 1999.

Penjdikent: The city is located 1,000m high. Founded in the 5th century by Hephtalit princes, it was for two centuries the centre of the Sogdian civilization. The fortified city had several temples and many aristocratic residences. The Indian influence, Shivaism, the Iranian influence, Zoroastrism, and Buddhism showed the intellectual attitude of Sogdians: They invented ecumenism.
The Roudaki museum exhibits outstanding frescos and artefacts coming from excavations.