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Burana Tower

Sample tour: Burana Tower and Ancient Balasagun

Duration

6 hours

Group size

2 to 15 people

Format

Group

Difficulty

Easy

Starts in

Бишкек

Ends in

Бишкек

Half a day in the Chuy Valley: an 11th-century minaret, stone balbals, the Balasagun museum and a mountain view from the top of the tower.

An hour's drive from Bishkek stands the Burana minaret, all that remains of the city of Balasagun, the capital of the Karakhanids. We climb the narrow spiral staircase inside the tower and look out over the valley from above. Nearby is a field of balbals, the stone grave markers of Turkic warriors collected from all over the Chuy Valley. In the small museum we look at the finds: coins, ceramics, fragments of a mosque. I talk about the Silk Road, the poet Yusuf Balasaguni and how merchants lived a thousand years ago. An easy trip for any age that pairs well with lunch at a roadside café serving Kyrgyz food.