Informative travel to Turkestan.

“I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers” 

Langston Hughes.

Cultural-historical monuments of Southern Kazakhstan.

The architectural complex mosque - madrasah is located on the western outskirts of the village of Shayan, Baidibek district of Turkestan region, an architectural monument of the nineteenth century. There used to be a small adobe mosque on the hill, but the intensive settlement of the area led to the decision to build a large spacious mosque.
Masters were invited from Bukhara. Previously, the architectural complex stood apart, now it is in the zone of dense residential development. It consists of 3 buildings: a madrasah, a mosque and a darskhan, located on the same line and facing the main facades towards the village.
The minaret standing at the mosque was not preserved. The planning and volumetric composition of the complex as a whole has no direct analogies in the region under consideration, however, its individual components - madrassas, mosques - were built in typological schemes traditional in the south of Kazakhstan (Baba-Ata madrasah in Turkestan region, mosques in the village of Uyuk, Usharal in the Jambul region and etc.).
It is made of European-style burnt bricks. Architectural expressiveness was achieved by repeated use of a typical arched dome element in the ceiling, decoration of interiors, facades with pilasters, brick texture of the walls using domed stripes of figured brickwork at the corner.
All buildings are one-story and approximately the same height. The functional significance of individual rooms - the prayer hall of a mosque, darskhan, the classrooms of the madrasah - is emphasized by the raising of the dome, sometimes with the arrangement of high drums.
In the interior decoration used wall ornament using kirma technique. At the complex, measures were taken to preserve and restore it.
Geographic coordinates of the architectural complex and Appak Ishan: N43 ° 01'29.54 "E69 ° 22'23.06"

Authority:
D. A. Taleev. "Code of monuments of the South Kazakhstan region." Architectural and archaeological heritage of the South Kazakhstan region. In the framework of the regional program "Cultural Heritage". http://www.farsah.kz

Photos
Alexander Petrov.