The Kalyan Minaret was completed in 1127 by the Karakhanid ruler Arslan Khan. Legend says that about a century later, when Genghis Khan took Bukhara, he was so struck by the tower's grandeur that he ordered it alone spared amid the destruction all around. The tower also has an unsettling nickname, the 'Tower of Death' — until the early 20th century criminals were executed by being thrown from the top.
Myths and legends
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Central AsiaStories rooted in place
On 19 June 1941 the Soviet anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov opened Timur's tomb to study his remains and reconstructed his face from the skull. Legend says the coffin bore the inscription: 'Whoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.' People around Gerasimov said this was a made-up story, but by coincidence, three days after the tomb was opened, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.