Hodja Ahmed Yasavi Mausoleum in Turkestan (up to the XVI century Yasi city) in Southern Kazakhstan is unique among them.

Yasi city was on the crossroads of an old caravan route - Great Silk Route branch - trade road between Desht-and Kypshak steppe and farming oasis of Central Asia - Horezm, Tashkent, Buhara and Samarkand.

Its positioning provided for lively trade. China exported porcelain, Persia - Asian tiger skin, gold and silver ware, Byzantium - all kinds of women fabrics. Caravans leaving for Russia took astrakhan - the matchless treasure of nomad Turks, coloured Turkestan glass (it were Turks who taught its manufacturing to Chinese people), thin silk, cotton seed. Daily Turkestan saw the sale of more than 500 camels. The skin of a lynx was equivalent to 5 sheep, horn of a Siberian deer cost as much as silver. In XV - X cenuries Turkestan was the residence of Kazakh Khans.

The town of Yasi was the scene of Hodja Ahmed's religious activity. It was here that he spent a large part of his life and was buried.

Hodja Ahmed Yasavi was born in the town of Sairam near Shymkent in 1103. Arslan-Bab sheikh was Akhmed's first spiritual teacher and mentor.After his death Hodja Ahmed went to Bukhara and studied a very complex course of Sufic doctrine . For a time he was the head of the Bukhara Sufis but soon he relinquished this place of honour and went to the town of Yasi. Here he started his preaching.

In his sermons Hodja Ahmed Yasavi urged people to be good and taught them to despise greed and cupidity. His poems enjoyed great popularity, they were learnt by heart and were chanted far beyond the bounds of Desht - and- Kypshak. The poet's fame grew year by year. His poems entered the world cultural treasury.

Legend has it that as a token of mourning for the dead prophet Mohammed, whom the poet regarded as his teacher, Hodja Ahmed Yasavi, having reached sixty- three, the age at which the prophet died, moved to a subterranean cell near the mosque and spent the rest of his life preaching there.

He died in 1166\67 and was buried with great honour in a small mausoleum erected for him, which subsequently became a place of mass pilgrimage and workship for Moslems. If a man visited this mausoleum three times it stood for Hadj to Mecca.

The present Mausoleum was erected 233 years after his death under the order of Timur.

In 1389, 1391, 1394, 1395 in numerous bloody battles Timur destroyed the power of the Golden Horde and set fire to its capital the town- Sarai -Berk, and in honor of this victory that he decided to build a new,grandiouse memorial complex on the site of the old mausoleum of Ahmed Yasavi, which was by then somewhat decrepit.

Timur was guided not only by pure religious considerations. By this act he was raising his authority, asserting the idea of the inviolability of his power.

Every kind of sources state that Timur took part personally in drawing up the design for the future mausoleum and gave instructions to his builders.

The complex of Hodja Ahmed Yasavi consists of a huge,rectangular building with portals and domes.In ground plan it measures 46,5 x 65,5 metres. The thickness of the outside walls is 1,8-2 metres; and the walls of the central chamber are-3 metres thick.

The building has an enormous portal and a number of domes. Around its central chamber are more than 35 rooms for various purposes.

Kazanlyk ( the copper- room) has the largest extant brick dome in Central Asia and Kazakhstan witjh a diameter of 18,2 metres.

Kazan for Turks was the symbol of unity and hospitality. That's why special significance was attached to its size and exterior. Turkestan kazan has no second to it. Its diameter-2,45 m., weight-2 tons, it is made of the alloys of 7 metals.

The construction material for the halls of the Mausoleum is clinker. The technological purity of its production was perfected.

The facing of the north portal is exceptionally beautiful. The door of the burial- vault is carved and decorated with fine ivory incrustation.

According to its size, Hodja Ahmed Yasavi Mausoleum is equal to Bibi- Khanym mosque of Samarkand (Uzbekistan).

Currently Turkestan is a place of mass pilgrimage for tourists all over the world, who come to see the matchless masterpiece of medieval architecture - Hodja Ahmed Yasavi Mausoleum.