Dushanbe, like any major capital, forms an extensive urban area stretching over 50 kilometers through the Gissar Valley, from Pakhtabad near the Uzbek border to Vahdat. This region is home to 1.5 million people. At the heart of this network lies the small town of Gissar, with a population of 26,000. More precisely, it is the ancient village of Kalai-Khisor, located just a few dozen kilometers west of Dushanbe.
Reaching Gissar from the capital takes less than half an hour, starting from the Zerafshan roundabout at the end of Samani Avenue. As you approach Gissar, you’ll see the grass-covered ruins of Hissorteppa on the right side of the road. Beyond these ruins lies ancient Gissar, where remnants of the old city now form a small park.
The city has existed here for about 3,000 years and was historically known as the capital of the region called Shuman, Shodmon (by the Persians), or Su Man (by the Chinese). This mountainous outpost of blessed Bactria once housed a few Buddhist monasteries and a formidable castle. The ruler at the time, Filsnab Bozik, boasted in a letter to the Arabs, «An arrow from my bow reaches only the middle of the wall, and my bows are superior to others.» Filsnab’s arrogance led him to expel Arab officials in 709-10, refuse tribute, and cunningly assassinate Ayash Gababi by sending a disguised warrior posing as a Muslim convert. This defiance caught the attention of Qutayba ibn Muslim, the conqueror of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Tashkent. Despite attempts by Qutayba’s brother, Muslim, to broker peace, war ensued, and the Shuman ruler perished in battle, allegedly hiding vast treasures in a bottomless fortress well.
The Arabs quickly rebuilt the fortress for their garrison, and while Shuman didn’t thrive, it remained a robust trading city, renowned across Central Asia for its saffron, until Genghis Khan’s conquest erased it from the map. Life persisted, and a settlement began to grow again under the ruins, known as «Fortress» or «Hissar» in Persian. The city fully revived in the late 14th century, becoming known as «Tamerlane’s arsenal» during his campaigns in India and Iran. A century later, it served as one of the residences of Sultan Mahmud, the eighth ruler of the Timurid dynasty. However, the decline of Central Asia eventually followed, and Hissar remained a stronghold of trade and the center of the most developed beylik in Eastern Bukhara until an earthquake in 1907 destroyed it.
Throughout the 20th century, Gissar’s status fluctuated between town and settlement. Before 1907, it was more of a city, the center of the Gissar Beylik in eastern Bukhara Emirate, but the earthquake forced Bek Shahimardankul and his court to relocate to the trading village of Dushanbe, which later grew into the nation’s capital. Under Soviet rule, Gissar was classified as an urban-type settlement, became a city in 1993, lost this status in 2005, and regained it in 2016. True to Central Asian tradition, its center remains a bustling bazaar.
The main gates of the fortress. Unfortunately, almost nothing remains of the original structures. What you see in the photo is a reconstruction done in the early 2000s.
That is how the fortress looked like before the reconstruction on the Soviet postcard from 1970s.
That is the look after the start of reconstruction when the first tower was rebuilt.
The buildings inside are souvenir shops.
Remnants of the fortress rampart.
There used to be a palace on the fortress grounds, but nothing remains of it. It was rebuildt from a scratch as well.