Kirk-Kiz

Kirk-Kiz was built in the ninth and tenth centuries in the Termez district, in the village of Namuna. It was the country residence of a Samanid emir who liked to spend the summer away from the noise of the city. The names of the architects who made real poetry out of ordinary clay are unknown, and time has ground down most of the building, but fine painting still shows in places on the vaults.

The name — forty maidens — could hardly fail to breed legends, and all of them concern women.

By one, a warrior woman named Gauhar lived in the fortress with thirty-nine other girls who handled a sword no worse than their leader — forty in all. When the enemy came to the walls the siege lasted forty days and forty nights, and all that time the girls held the defence. Many of the attackers died, and many of Gauhar's companions. When the arrows ran out, Gauhar, mortally wounded, came out of the fortress alone and challenged the enemy commander. Her helmet slipped from her head, her braids fell loose — and the commander, struck, dismounted, kissed her hand and led his army away.

By another legend Termez was ruled by a padishah with forty daughters. A Sufi sage once came to the city and out-argued all the court mullahs; they nursed the grievance and began to slander him to the padishah. What follows differs from telling to telling, but the name stayed with the fortress.