CENTRAL PLACE

In front of the palace gates, the great square was the venue for parades and military exercises as well as capital executions. In the centre of the square, a hole allowed the evacuation of blood during mass executions, such as those in 1717, when the 3,000 Russian soldiers of Prince Bekovich's expedition and the prince himself were beheaded. In the western corner, one can visit an insalubrious model prison dating from the 19th century, the zindan, a cousin of the rat hole of Bukhara where the unfortunate convicts rotted abandoned from the world of the living.