Ensemble "Khodja Gaukushon" ("Killing bulls", 1570s)

Khodja Gaukushan is one of the largest architectural ensembles in central Bukhara and part of the UNESCO World Heritage site.

The name translates oddly for a monument of this kind — the ox-killer. The explanation is straightforward: before the buildings went up, a large market square with a slaughterhouse stood here, and the name stuck to the place.

The ensemble takes in a madrasah and a congregational mosque with a minaret. The minaret is conspicuous: only the Kalyan rose higher in Bukhara. The Khodja Kalon madrasah — a trapezoidal building on the traditional courtyard plan — was built in 1570, under Abdullah Khan II, at a fork in the streets. In 1598 a Friday mosque, the masjid-i jami, went up beside it and took the name of the Khodja mosque.

All of it came about on the initiative of the Juybar sheikh Khodja Sa'd, known as Khodja Kalon — Khodja the Great. His epithet gave the ensemble its name. The sheikh himself was later buried in the family necropolis of Chor-Bakr outside the city.