The title Po-i-Kalyan (also Poi Kalyan), which means 'The foot of the Great', belongs to the architectural complex located at the foot of the great minaret Kalyan in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

History

Kalyan Minaret that rises above the Bukhara city in the form of a huge vertical pillar. The complex is located at historic part of a town. Since 713 several ensembles of main cathedral mosques were built at this area to the south of the Ark citadel. One of these complexes, burnt out by Genghis Khan during the siege of Bukhara, was built in 1121 by the Karakhanid ruler Arslan-khan. The Minaret Kalyan is the only of structures of Arslan-han complex, which was kept safe during that siege.

Architectural features

The architect, whose name was simply Boko, entwined his name (as well as the date of construction and the name of Arslan-Khan) with epigraphic ornaments of the Minaret. Local inhabitants believe that the architect was buried somewhere among houses of the neighboring residential quarter. Bako made a minaret in the form of a circular-pillar brick tower, narrowing upwards, of 9 meters (29.53 feet) diameter at the bottom, 6 meters (19.69 feet) overhead and 45.6 meters (149.61 feet) high. There is a brick spiral staircase that twists up inside around the pillar, leading to the landing in sixteen-arched rotunda - skylight, which based on a magnificent stalactite cornice (sharafa).