Istravashan and Khujand

Today's journey is through the industrial and agricultural heartland around the city of Khujand. We had a brief stop in Istravashan founded by the Persian king Kier in the sixth century, where we visited a bazaar and the Kok-Gumbaz Mosque and madrassah.
While Khujand is not the most attractive of cities it has a complex history. Believed to be one of the oldest in Central Asia, it was attacked by Alexander the Great, Arab invaders and Genghis Khan, as well as being an important stop along the Silk Road. There are still traces of the glory days and we visited the Sheikh Maslikhiddin Mausoleum, the Payshhambe bazaar and, Arbob Cultural Palace, a copy of the Russian tsarist palace of Peterhof.