Dushanbe – Kurgan-Tepe tour for 2 days

09:00 Meet the guide at the hotel in Dushanbe.

Start Dushanbe sightseeing tour visiting:

- Gissar Fortress - the remains of the Bukhara Emirate Beck’s palace. Its thick walls once guarded a pool, garden, and palace, while the fortress itself opposed a noisy market and caravanserai. The place was famous for its center of commerce during the Silk Road.

- Old Medressa (Madrasai Kuhna) of the 16-17th century with a museum inside, the new Medressa of 17-18 century as well as Caravan Saray.

- Tajik National Museum of Antiquities with the biggest Buddha in Nirvana.

The Museum consists of 22 exhibition halls with departments of nature, antiquity and the Middle Ages, modern history, fine and applied arts.

- Tajik flagpole-one of  the World tallest flagpoles (165-meter flagpole);

-Monument of Ismoili Somoni-the forefather of Tajik Nation located on the main square. A 40-meter-high monument built to the memory of Ismaili Saman-Khuda, founder of the Samanid dynasty;

- Mehrgon Bazaar - one of the biggest markets of Dushanbe;

Transfer to the hotel.

Resting time in the evening. Overnight at the hotel.

Breakfast at the hotel. 

Transfer to the South of Tajikistan to Shahrituz (230 km), over Fakhrabad pass along 

Vakhsh river and valley visiting:

- Chilu-Chor Chashma holly spring and Islam pilgrims place. 

Continue driving to Kurgan-Tyube which was renamed for Bohtar via Kolkhozabad. 

-  Tahti Sangin (“Stone throne” from Tajik), one of the major Zoroastrian sights located near Tajik – Afgan border. The settlement, founded in IV century BC, included citadel with Zoroastrian temple with main hall and stone columns. In two symmetric towers, fire sanctuaries with stone remains were found. Some artefacts refer Tahti Sangin to famous Oxus Treasure. 

- Ajina Tepa, which is situated at a distance of 12 km east of the city of Bohtar (former Kurgan-Tyube). Ajina-Tepa is the ancient Buddhist monastery, about 500,000 artifacts were found: sculptures, reliefs, wall painting fragments of a uniform, complex of dwelling and cult rooms of a 7th-8th-century Buddhist monastery. The sensational finding in one of the monastery corridors of Ajina-Tepa in 1966 was a huge clay statue of the Buddha in Nirvana, the biggest sculpture of the Buddha found on the territory of modern Central Asia. The site is being considered to be put on the World Heritage list of sites that have outstanding universal value to the world.

Transfer to Dushanbe.

Arrival at the hotel.

End of the tour.