Talk:Bukhara

Name?
I just noticed that the Uzbek spelling has been changed from "&#1041;&#1201;&#1093;&#1072;&#1088;&#1072;" to "&#1041;&#1091;&#1093;&#1086;&#1088;&#1086;". I don't know Uzbek but I'm pretty sure user 80.71.101.90 has "corrected" it to the Russian spelling. His comment says "fixed Cyrillic name" - but obviously there is more than one Cyrillic name since there are more than one cyrillic languages. Can anybody check this? Hippietrail 09:00, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * Nobody has commented so I'm fixing this now. &mdash; Hippietrail 00:29, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Wow, I'm over a year late on this. The deal on this is that "&#1041;&#1091;&#1093;&#1086;&#1088;&#1086;" is the correct Uzbek Cyrillic spelling, whereas "Buxoro" is the correct Uzbek Latin spelling.  The Cyrillic alphabet was phased out in Uzbekistan following the breakup of the USSR.--KASchmidt 05:09, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Might it be worth noting that the spelling Bokhara is used in many English sources? I see there is a redirect set up for that useage, but it might be helpful to note it in the main page, to clarify. - Kd5mdk 20 Feb 2005 0449 UTC-6
 * "Bokhara" is essentially an archaism; it reflects the transliteration of the Arabic-alphabet spelling according to the principles usually used to render Persian into English. This is fair enough, as the majority of the city's population are Persian/Tajik-speaking, but as the population there now uses either the Cyrillic or Latin alphabet, the spelling "Bokhara" is more of a fossilization than a contemporary Romanization.--KASchmidt 05:09, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. As someone who is doing a fair amount of work on Central Asian history using strictly English language sources, many dating from the 19th century, it's particularly hard to keep track of what is varient spellings and transliterations of the same name, and what is a completely different place with a similar name.  I suppose I'm just particularly sensitive to this.  Kd5mdk 8 July 2005 22:56 (UTC)


 * "Bokhara" may be just the older English name, but it is still used in the rug trade, and in books about rugs. Since it occurs in so many sources, its seems appropriate to confirm a user's suspicion that Bokhara is Bukhara.  --Bejnar 20:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I would agree that it would be helpful to mention the Bokhara spelling - perhaps it could replace the bizarre claim that "Bukhoro" was used in 19th and 20th century English publications. DuncanHill (talk) 23:31, 3 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I have ascertained that mention of "Bokhara", and its replacement by "Bukhoro" was made in this edit which was by an IP which has made no other edits. I think we can put it down to vandalism. I have restored the previous wording. DuncanHill (talk) 23:35, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I added IPA pronunciation, several paragraphs about the possible name origins of the city, all of which were deleted by Qahramani44, because “it’s not bias if its credited from multiple sources” which i assume he said about the change of tajik to being a “sizeable minority” however, 99% of the edits weren’t even about ethnic designations, so the deletion was completely unfounded, and ended up wasting hours of work and research Pigeon de Ville (talk) 22:24, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

ethnic percentages
The previous wording (not mine) about Bukharas Tajik not Uzbek character was deleted. For the moment I have put in a (I hope neutral) new wording on this and included an official Uzbekistan Govt source which states that the Tajik minority in the country is concentrated in Bukhara and Samarkand. However the actual percentages are in dispute. It may well indeed be that the Tajiks are in the majority in Bukhara as they claim. The total Tajik population in the country as a whole varies wildly according to which figures you use (see this link for various claims one way and another}. If, as here, the accusation is that the Tajik minority are deliberately under-enumerated as a matter of official policy, what do we do wikipedia-rules-wise?. It's difficult to find verifiable sources which are not in some way based on official census figures. Jameswilson 21:38, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, good!
 * Usually, even things like that leave some kind of paper trail. There's always some scholar at some university interested in the topic. The Armenian Genocide is an example of a topic which doesnt die despite the attempts to quell it.
 * There's bound to be some scholar somewhere on this topic right? I checked the 1943 Ency Brit, but it doesnt mention anything of the sort. If there is truly an ethnic rpression, itb bound to be documented by some human rights group or something.
 * Ah, I found something; a report by the US govt stating:
 * "Government statistics dating from 1992 show that the population of approximately 23 million is about 71 percent Uzbeks, 8 percent Russians, 5 percent Tajiks, 4 percent Tatars, and 3 percent Kazakhs, with many other ethnic groups represented. The statistics may underestimate the actual number of ethnic Tajiks. The figures also do not include many ethnic Tajiks whose mother tongue was Uzbek. Moreover, some Tajiks choose for a variety of reasons to declare themselves to be ethnic Uzbeks."
 * This is enough for our purposes, though there might be more somewhere on Bukhara itself. I'll also leave this ref at Tajik. Cheers, The Minist   e   r of War   (Peace) 06:19, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Found another article which mentions this [] - which suggests a much higher national percentage for Tajiks in Uzbekistan. One could certainly deduce from that that they "must be" a majority in Bukhara if thats one of their strongholds. Jameswilson 01:27, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

City infobox
I think the city infobox should be placed at the top, as opposed to the world heritage site infobox, which is less relevant to the subject of the article. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 12:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Bias
I think that this article on Bukhara is extremely bias and supports very questionable and in fact, very useless arguments about the ethnic "belonging" of Bukhara. The blunt statement that "Russians supported Uzbeks over Tajiks and let Uzbekistan have Bukhara and Samarkand" is so grossly wrong and sounds like an accusaion by some Tajik nationalists who simply never studied history. The latter were heavily supported by Russians during the Soviet period on the matter of "belonging" of Bukhara and Samarkand to tajiks. It was Soviet Russian policy to keep Central Asian nationals apart, have them quarrel over the territories and history that Russian tried very hard to destroy ( archived, documents, witnesses). The statement that makes one laugh is that "Persians lived in Bukhara, that are now Tajiks". How Persians became Tajiks? This just can't be serious. The very discussion of "belonging" of such an ancient city with a very rich culture and history is totally inappropriate. Bukhara does not "belong" to any ethnic group. It was in fact part of the Persian empire at some period, yet with the Timurid's dynasty coming into power, it ceased to be a Persian domain. Turks, Mongols, Arabs, Persians and many other ethnic groups resided in this region. With Islam winning over the region, Bukhara became a center of Islamic thought, which made it so beoynd any "ethnic" belonging, but in fact took it to a whole new level of an international center of Islamic culture. The fact that Turks culture (that was called Uzbek later) spread over the region Uzbek language was established in Bukhara as one of the main languages along with Persian and Arabic show that Bukhara was no longer purely Persian city. Persian language was spoken by most of the population regardless of its etchnic origins, whether they were mongols, turks, arabs or tajiks. In any event, such statements like in this article intices nationalism and misunderstanding. It is not scientific and extremely bias. It does not deserve to be published on a public site. --This comment was added on 11 August 2007 by 91.188.128.131

-Reality- I am just amazed at how Uzbeks have been either ignorant or simply can't handle the fact that Tajiks (Persians) are indigenous people of Central Asia. First of all there was a reason why Soviet supported Non-persian speaking people to have Samarkand and Bukhara including other regions. Tajik, Soghdian, Iranian, Bactrian, Parthian are all Persians! The cities of Bukhara and Samarqand are and they were important centers of the Sogdian empire. The term "Uzbekistan" is a very recent one - Uzbeks did not arrive in the area until long after the Iranian peoples had settled there. Since Tajik and Sogdian are both Iranian languages, and as some Uzbeks say that Tajik has "nothing in common with Sogdian" reflects a complete ignorance of the linguistic reality. The boundaries of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were fixed by the Soviets with no regard for the history of the region or the ethnicities living in those areas, so whether an area was located in what is now Tajikistan or not has nothing to do with whether it is a part of Tajik heritage. Bukhara and Samarqand are both proudly and correctly considered important Tajik-Persian cities by the Tajiks. Since the ancestors of the Uzbeks did intermarry with the indigenous Iranian peoples, there is most likely a Sogdian element in the Uzbek population as well. However, Uzbeks are primarily of Turkic origin, which means that their ancestors were Altaic migrants from the east, with an ethnolinguistic origin completely unrelated to the Sogdians or any of the other Iranian (and therefore Indo-European) peoples of Central Asia who were already there when they arrived. Bukhara was the Academy for all Persian poets and great philosophers such as Rudaki, Firdavsi, Saadi, Rumi, Nizami etc. How can you say and ask "How Persian became Tajiks?" I tend not to read Uzbek accounts of history, because they tend to be quite ridiculous. To act as if there is no physical difference between Tajiks and Uzbeks is not only ridiculous, it defies all reality. You can also say that the sky is green, but it will continue to be blue in reality - Tajiks appear generally Caucasian (I don't think I can be confused for Mongol), while Uzbeks appear generally Asiatic/Mongol. Whatever fantasies the Uzbek government and Uzbek nationalists may cherish, unfortunately they will be at odds with reality. There is no shame in being a Turk, or the descendant of later migrants from Mongolia, but it's unfortunate that you and others feel this way about your origins. It is also clear that you do not speak either Tajik or Iranian Farsi, because you don't seem to know anything about the linguistic structure or lexicography of either one. The Persian element in Uzbek exists because Persian was the primary literary language of the area, and thus all the other regional languages, such as Uzbek, Pashto, Turkish, etc. borrowed extensively from it. Further, the Russian words are obviously from recent origin and in part the result of efforts by the Soviets to Russify the languages of Central Asia. Thus, this analogy is entirely irrelevant. Just as Uzbeks fantasize about being the area's original inhabitants, or descendants of Sogdians, or any number of nonsensical theories, Kazakhs may well fantasize about being European. Both groups need to simply accept reality - they are Altaic-speaking, and Asiatic-looking, and any scholarly publication will tell you that both are the descendants of a wave of Altaic, Turkic migrants from the east. The Tajiks are the direct descendants of the Iranian peoples whose continuous presence in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan is attested from the middle of the 1st millennium bc. The ancestors of the Tajiks constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwārezm (Khorezm) and Bactria, which formed part of Transoxania (Sogdiana). They were included in the empires of Persia and Alexander the Great, and they intermingled with such later invaders as the Kushāns and Hepthalites in the 1st–6th centuries ad. Over the course of time, the eastern Iranian dialect that was used by the ancient Tajiks eventually gave way to Farsi, a western dialect spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AryanMK (talk • contribs) 21:54, 11 November 2012 (UTC) Hi guys! I was just going through the wikipedia page devoted to my hometown and thought that I might add few points to your discussion. I guess things are the way much more complicated than you both tend to think, particularly when you are talking about an ethnic situation in such a place like Bukhara. But in case if you are searching for a simple sollution, there is only one thing that I can possibly offer: forget about defining the people of Bukhara as "Tajiks" or "Uzbeks". Things are not that clear cut: all the way up to the 20th century there was no clear ethnic identuty among the population of Bukhara as it indeed constituted of many different groups that based their identity on their regional, social or tribal origins. Words like Uzbek or Tajik were indeed used, but they didnt have a clear ethnic or national meaning as it does now. In fact, "Uzbeks" and "Tajiks" as "nations" are mere construction of the Soviet policy of nation-building in Central Asia. So, any statements saying that the population of Bukhara are either Tajik or Uzbek on the academic level are going to end as tautologies. Even now, with massive "Uzbekisation" in the city, the people do not tend to have a clear identity and could be either "Uzbek" or "Tajik" depending on situation and circumstances. Few more points: 1. It is indeed, interesting how one can jump from Persian to Tajik without further explanations. But I guess the person who is criticizing that should be similarly careful when he is stating: "Turks culture (that was called Uzbek later)" not to make the same mistake. 2. Soghdian empire - have never heard about one. I guess you mean a historico-cultural region that at some points constituted of dozens of semi-independant principalities; 3. Indeed Soghdian and Tajik are Persian languages. But there is one minor, but yet very important difference: Soghdian (as all other ancient Central Asian languages) is an eastern-Persian language, while Tajik is west-Persian in its origin (as far as I know, the only groups that still use the eastern Persian dialects are the people of Pamir, who have been included by the soviets to the newly created "Tajik" nation and their Tajikisation is being continued up to now. I know how critical are some Tajiks intellectual when it comes to Uzbekisation going on in Uzbekistan, but their critical mind somehow disappears when it comes to the "Tajikisation" of Pamir people). If I follow your "racially-linguistic" theory in trying to define the "indeginous" people of Central Asia, I might say that Tajiks are also migrants from Western Iran, which obviously would be absolutely wrong as is the case with your conclusion about the origins of people who call themselves as Uzbeks. Language is indeed important, but it cant be used as the only defining point and I hope that an example of Tajik language might help you to understand that. 4. Now about race: I know how some of the Tajik intellectuals were working hard on forging this "racial division" between Uzbeks and Tajiks for the last few years. That process indeed has its own reasons and should be seen in the wider context of "state-to-state" relationships and the formation of the new "nationalistic ideologies" in Central Asia. Indeed, if you take an exapmle of, lets say, an Uzbek who still has got a trible memory and compare his anthropological features to someone from Pamir (whose mother tongue is not even Tajik) the difference is clear. But is it right to judge something based on extreme examples? I guess you can if you are searching an argument to support your subjective opinion. But if we want balanced point we need to look deeper: it is not a secret (and the whole universe knows about it) that most of the Uzbeks and Tajiks belong to the "Pamir-Ferghan" subgroup of the big Caucasian race. Of course, there are differences: the amount of mongoloid features are more present among the Uzbeks rather than Tajiks. And of course there extreme cases. And of course there are people of Pamir who belong to a different subgroup and are actually anthropologically closer to Turkmens rather than "vally Tajiks". And, of course, your anthropological type is note defined only by the shape of your eyes. But, I think that for the person who is searching an answer to his "linguo-racial phenomenon" wouldnt make a difference. All in all, I would like to return to my first point: any attempt to define an ethniticity of Bukharians would fail simply because you are putting your own "construction" over the people who dont really have that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.143.98.190 (talk) 12:41, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Meaning unclear
Can someone tell me what the sentence, from the lead quoted below, is trying to say? --Bejnar 21:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * "These two cities, Samarkand and Bukhara, belonged to Persians, especially to eastern part, who are now Tajiks."


 * True the Tajiks are Iranian peoples and prior to the Mongols the Persian Sassanid Empire and Samanid dynasty ruled there, but the post-Mongol invasion history shows that after the Chagatai Khanate the area was part of Timur's empire, the Timurid dynasty, and then the Uzbek Shaybanid dynasty, all descendants of Genghis Khan. It wasn't until the 18th Century that the Persians under Nader Shah briefly again made an appearance in the area.  So is the sentence saying "Under the Sassanids and Samanids the area was part of the Persian empire, and the Persian speaking Tajiks predominantly of eastern Uzbekistan are a remnant."?  If so what relevance does it have for Bukhara and why is it important enough to be in the lead?  --Bejnar 21:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, that sentence needs to be changed since the city does not belong to any one ethnic group. Though it should be mentioned that that ethnic group are the majority of the city. --Behnam 21:58, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Alternative History to Main Article
The Tadzhiks are of Iranian origin and speak a Persian dialect. They appear to have formed the bulk of population at the time of ancient civilizations ones flourished in Central Asia and seems to have laid the foundation of the irrigation systems in the western part of the area. The Kazakhs belong to Turkic-Tatar branch of the Mongol peoples. The Turkic speaking peoples - the Uzbeks, Turkmenians, and Sarts - are descendants of Turkic and mixed Turkic-Iranian peoples who come into this part of Central Asia, especially since the beginning of the middle ages. They now far outnumber the Tadzhiks in the area. In addition many Jews immigrated into the area, especially to Khorasan, forming a large minority there at the time of Darius the Great (521-485 BC).

The Persian Empire at the time of darius the Great extended from Egypt and Turkey through Transcaucasia, modern Persia, and Afghanistan to the Indus valley, and included the most ancient centres of Indo-Iranian culture and language. To the north of this ancient Persian Empire layed vast lands of the Scythians and in east the lands of Turanians. The territory of the former Soviet Central Asia comprised the north-eastern part of the Persian Empire.

In the fourth century BC, the rule of Persia was replaced by that of Alexander the Great, who in 329 BC took Bukhara and Samarkand, already ancient cities. After his death the Orient, as it was then called, was ruled from Syria by the dynasty of Seleucus. In c. 250 BC the Parthians, of Scythian origin, who lived south-east of the Caspian, established their own empire, which included most of the later modern Soviet Central Asia, including Bukhara. They in turn were succeeded by the Persian Sassanides (226-442 AD), the last dynasty to of native kings of Persia. The Sassanides were overthrown by the Arabs, and it was during the poriod of Arab rule in Central Asia that the Turkish tribes begun to move into the country and the Islamic religion was introduced. The inhabitants of Merv, and in lesser extent in Bukhara, were Nestorian Christian in the sixth century AD. The ancient city of Khorasan become a capital of the Persian-Arab state of Khorasan. In the seventh century AD it was second only to Baghdad, the greatest city in Orient.

From ancient times threre were strong trade ties from the northern coniferous forest zone with Central Asian trading centres, Bukhara, Samarkand and Merv. At first with the Finnic tribes, then with Norsemen, Kijevan Rus and later with Muscovites. The merchants from Central Asia who came to Russia via the Caspian Sea and Volga. In 1216 Mongol Genghiz Khan destroyed the ancient civilizations of Central Asia. Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khiva were all burned and redused to ruins. There was a brief revival when the empire of Genghiz Khan was divided among his successors and Timur (nickmamed Tamerlane on account of his lameness) founded a new kingdom with its capital of Samarkand, where his tomb can see even today. After Timur´s death his kingdom broke up into a number of separate feudal states, with a loose and constantly changing relationship one with another according to the growth or decline in power of the local rulers. The most powerful states had their centres on Khiva, Bukhara, and Kokand. These centres stood on important caravan trading routes, and around them lay the largest areas of irrigated land.

The successors of Timur the Tamerlane ruled intil the 15th century, after which the ruling families were Turkic Uzbek- by that time the (and now) the most numerous of all peples of Central Asia. The Uzbeks were of Islamic faith and spoke Jagatai, one of the Turkic group of languages.

In ancient and mediveal states of Central Asia all depended for their prosperity upon irrigation works. War or raids of nomandic tribes not only interrupted trade but could destroy the work of generation or a century of peaceful development by causing destruction, damage, or neglect to these works. This happened to a considerable extent during the disintegration of Timur´s empire in the 15th century. it is probable that the towns and cultuvated oases which the Europeans first saw in the 16th century and later were mere fragments of their former splendour and prosperity.

During the 16th century England was interested in the possibility of opening up trade through the Caspian Sea, and one of the first Western Europeans to visit the feudal states of Khiva and Bukhara was Sir Anthony Jenkins, a pioner of Anglo-Russian trade, and peharps the first Englishman to see Caspian Sea. The Russian traveller Puzhukin visited these towns a century later, and another Russian, Muravin journeyed to Khiva in 1740.

At this time there was trade between Bukhara and India. Later, after the Russo-Persian war 1811 the Russians obtained the exclusive right to maintain warships on the Caspian Sea. Also by this time and little later Russian colonization in Western Siberia has expanded to southward into Kazakh territory. Russian fishing communities were established on the north coast of Aral Sea in the second half of the 18th century. Anticipating Russian advance, the rulers of the Khanate of Kokand built a number of forts along Syr-Darya valley early in the the 19th century. In 1847 the Russians moved to the mouth of the river from their base in Kazakhstan and built a fort from which to attack the Khanate of Kokand. Their advance into Central Asia began to cause some concern to the British Government of India.

The Russian advance towards Afghanistan and its threat to Bukhara Indian trade and the security of India started the "Great Game". In 1840 a British colonel and an army captain, sent on diplomatic missions to the Emir of Bukhara, dissapeared without trace. In 1843 Joseph Wolfe, an Jewish clergyman of the Church of England, set out on his own initiative from London to discover the fate of the two man (rather in the same way in which Stanley set out in search Livingstone), but he was seized and thrown into one of the dreadful dungeons of Bukhara and only released after the intervention of the Shah of Persia. He was able to reveal that both British officers, after long confinement in a dungeon infisted with sheep-ticks, had been decapitated in public.

Twenty years later Russian army conquered after a bitter and prolonged struggle Chimkent and then Tashkent. In 1868 the power of the Kokand and Bukhara states was finally broken. The Russians adopted similar colonial policy in many respects to that of the British in India. The weaker states of Kokand, Khorezem, and Merv were incorporated into the Russian Empire. But Bukhara and Khiva were dismembered and left as native states. In case of Bukhara which was the centre of the most fanatic of all Muslims in Asia, the Russian Government was wise enough not to attempt to start a Holy War by outright annexation, but chose instead to make it a vassal state, a protectorate. Russia was in a strong position since she controlled the Zerevshan valley and could at any time cut off the supplies of the life-giving water to Bukhara. No trade was allowed except with Russia and Bukhara was left to stagnate and degenerate still further in dirt and corruption. The rulers of the Bukhara and Khiva were more concerned of their personal enrichment than with with economic progress or welfare of their peoples. Huge tracts of land belonged to Emir of Bukhara, and other lands belonged to mosques, religional schools, Madrassas, and local Beys. The land was worked by peasants who were allowed to reatain about quarter of their corp. Those who owned some land paid heavy feudal dues, and peasants had to give their labour for construction and maintenance of the irrigation work. When Emir of Bukhara fled in 1920 to Afghanistan, he had a personal fortune of 175 million American dollars.

In 1915 and 1916 Germany was active to create a second front agaist the Russians. Dr Oskar von Niedemayer and Dr Werner Otto von Hentig from Afghanistan contacted Emir of Bukhara and local Afghan War Lord Amir Habibullah to start Holy War anginst the Russians in Central Asia and invade to British India with 150.000 armed tribesman. The German experts promised both arms and economocal support of value of 10 million pounds. The plan began to founder when Amir Habibullah could not unite Afghan tribesmen under his command and was finally collapsed completely with the German defeat in 1918.

Bukhara and Khiva remained until 1920 in the maps showing even the areas which belonged to these vassal states. But after the Emir of Bukhara had fled to Afghanistan a serious revolts took place and the Red Army had to be called from Tashkent to smash the Muslim rebellionists. The new Soviet puppet state that was set up in the territory of old Emirate of Bukhara was declared to be completely independent and an appeal was made to the Soviet Russia for economic assistance. Under the leadership of Enver Pasha 1921-1922 anti-Soviet organisations began to popularize the idea of Pan-Islamic state, Panislamstan under Turkic leadership in Central Asia. To meet this threat, the Soviet agents managed to have Enver poisoned. Without strong leader figure the Panislamstan movement lost ground among poor peasant population. The Soviet propaganda machine promised land reform which gave them the lands of the Beys and the mosques, while energetic measures were taken to improve the economy of Bukhara and provide facilities for education and helth services. But despite these, local resistance continued after the Nationalization of land and property in 1925-1929. The struggles continued in a few areas with bloodshed to 1939 and 1944. The continous querilla (bandit) war caused severe decline in some sections of economy, particulary livestock breeding, which was not fully recovered until 1943 and 1944 when the last fanatic Muslims rebellionists withdrew to Afghanistan. In 1936-1939 Abwehr supported the Panislamstans with full support of exiled Emir of Bukhara in Kabul. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.192.106 (talk) 04:43, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Haw many jews live in Bukhara? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.229.188.220 (talk) 01:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Bukhara had Numerous names
Bukhara had numerous names, and this page does not even mention that fact!! In the book:

History of Bukhara by Narshakhi (translated by Richard N. Frye), Page 27 writes:

"... Bukhara had many names. One of its name is Numijkat. It has also been called "Bumiskat". It has 2 names in Arabic. One is "Madinat al Sufriya" meaning - "the copper city" and another is "madinat al tujjar" meaning - "the city of merchants". But, the name Bukhara is more known than all the other names. In Khurasan, there is no other city with so many names. ...".

-- someone should add this fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.228.121.25 (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Tajik name
Since per official statistics, Tajiks make up 4% of the population, whereas Russians represent 6%, would it be more logical to replace the Tajik name of the city with the Russian one in the infobox? Abdullais4u (talk) 08:27, 4 April 2014 (UTC) For some reason, the official website of Bukhara is not accessible out of Uzbekistan, so here's the snapshot. Abdullais4u (talk) 10:03, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the snapshot. However, the information should be in the respective demography section and not in the lead. Also, there are plenty of good and reliable sources that criticize the official Uzbek numbes for being fabricated and wrong. --Lysozym (talk) 23:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I looked up the source you gave for the However, official Uzbek numbers have for long been criticized and refuted by various Western sources claim, and it seems it does not address the official Uzbek statistics, but discusses the Soviet numbers which are revised since. Abdullais4u (talk) 08:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of sources that criticize the official numbers of the Uzbek government. You are free to look it up or perhaps find better ones. Here is another one:
 * "... Consequently, the number of citizens who regard themselves as Tajiks is difficult to determine. [...] Samarkand State University (SamGU) academic and international commentators suggest that there may be between six and seven million Tajiks in Uzbekistan, constituting 30% of the republic's 22 million population, rather than the official figure of 4.7% (Foltz 1996;213; Carlisle 1995:88)..." - Karl Cordell: Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe, Routledge, 1998. Pg. 201.
 * --Lysozym (talk) 09:44, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I am yet to find strong, reliable sources which strictly refute the official numbers. Not shilly-shally speculative "sources". Abdullais4u (talk) 11:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

And Bukhara going from overwhelming majority city tajiks in 1917 russian cencus to overwhelming uzbeks just 13 years later, is not strange to you?. And couple that with bukhara since being muslim have been majority modern eastern persian speakers (darbari,dari,tajiki etc) that is readable today. You have yet not studied at all then if you find no fault with the uzbek census and belive magically tajiks became uzbeks. And yes, Uzbek and Tajik are modern concept of ethinices, but PERSIAN speakrs,wheter kalaji,sarts,farsiwan have been in majority in all historical records exeapt the modern sovjiet nation-building psuedohistory. Also wanting to change the name of the city from persian is classic turkic nationalistic pratice to rewrite history, its not logical even if there was zero tajiks since your doing cultural stealing.

"reliable source" are the early cencus and history of sovjiet nation building, i suggest you research how many tribal afflication was changed by the new "uzbeks" back and forth. Your just countinuing the habits of turkic suppresion of minoritys by branding people turks and denying they existed, changing names, and calling plentifull sources "shilly-shally speculative" because you seem to have made up your mind.

Anyway, no its not logical to change the name — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.254.167.16 (talk) 07:10, 27 May 2020 (UTC)


 * (a) I thought the Soviet government conducted mass movements of peoples to the "republics" and oblasts they'd designated for specific ethnicities. If that were true, then the reported numbers could reflect actual forced migrations. (b) There's nothing unusual about speedy shifts in a city's or community's ethnicity. Do you know how quickly Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown emptied out of most of its Chinese and Chinese-American residents a couple of decades ago? Or how quickly Flushing, Queens, New York, once a largely Jewish community, became heavily Asian? So, whether or not the numbers were fake, a disbelief in the possibility that such changes do happen isn't a legitimate basis for concluding they were. Largoplazo (talk) 10:45, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Bukhara
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Bukhara's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ReferenceA": From History of Bukhara: Eastern Approaches, Fitzroy Maclean, ch 6 "Bokhara the Noble" 1949 From Red Army: . From Central Asia: Encyclopædia Iranica, "CENTRAL ASIA: The Islamic period up to the Mongols", C. Edmund Bosworth: "In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all the lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the Shahnama of Ferdowsi is regarded as the land allotted to Fereydun's son Tur. The denizens of Turan were held to include the Turks, in the first four centuries of Islam essentially those nomadizing beyond the Jaxartes, and behind them the Chinese (see Kowalski; Minorsky, "Turan"). Turan thus became both an ethnic and a diareeah term, but always containing ambiguities and contradictions, arising from the fact that all through Islamic times the lands immediately beyond the Oxus and along its lower reaches were the homes not of Turks but of Iranian peoples, such as the Sogdians and Khwarezmians." From Ziyarat: Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal (al-Fitan wal-Ashrat as-Sa’aat – the trials and signs of the Hour). See Ahkaamul-Janaa’iz, p.278 From Russian Civil War: P. and Coates, Soviets in Central Asia, 76. From Civil war in Tajikistan: Between Marx and Muhammad. Dilip Hiro. From Samarkand: Columbia-Lippincott Gazeteer. p. 1657 From Islamic architecture: Dictionary of Islamic architecture: Pishtaq archnet.org.</li> <li>From Aryan: R.G. Kent. Old Persian. Grammar, texts, lexicon. 2nd ed., New Haven, Conn.</li> <li>From Aliyah: http://www.jafi.org.il/JewishAgency/English/About/Press+Room/Aliyah+Statistics/nov2010.htm</li> <li>From International Standard Book Number: The ISBN Users' Manual International Edition, 6th edition</li> <li>From Ukrainians: </li> <li>From Tajikistan: A Country Study: Tajikistan, Tajikistan under Russian Rule, Library of Congress Call Number DK851 .K34 1997, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy:@field%28DOCID+tj0013%29</li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 15:54, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Unreliable sources
All of the "dimitry pages" and "Information about Bukhara" go to tourist sites, which fails WP:RS. I could just remove the sources and replace with a fact tag, but I'm doing this instead hoping someone will fix the problem. Doug Weller (talk) 11:05, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 one external links on Bukhara. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090102200523/http://www.iranica.com:80/newsite/articles/v4f5/v4f5a028.html to http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/v4f5/v4f5a028.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110701172421/http://www.ulivewhere.com:80/downloads/download-bukhara.html to http://www.ulivewhere.com/downloads/download-bukhara.html

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Russian name?
Does the Russian name of the city warrant inclusion in the article? Stephen MUFC (talk) 18:11, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose, the city never had considerable Russian population, and we do not add the names of cities in all possible languages (for example, go to an article about a West Ukrainian city, such as Lviv, add a Russian name and see how fast you get reverted). Interwiki links are available at the left panel.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:14, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. Most definitely should be included, especially in the section "Names".  This city was part of the USSR for most of the 20th century so its Russian name may be most familiar to older generations.  In regards to a previous comment, the article for Lviv does contain reference its Russian name: Lviv. --NoGhost (talk) 21:59, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Not in the lede though. I have seen edit-warring (and had to block users) in Ukrainian articles on whether Russian names should be included in infoboxes and ledes.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:03, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * And Bukhara was part of the Seleucid Empire - actually, for much longer that of the Soviet Union - should we add Ancient Greek? It was part of the Khaliphate - should we add Arabic? It was part of the Chagatai Khanate - should we add Mongolian? Or possibly even Chagatai language?--Ymblanter (talk) 22:19, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The RfC does not specify where the Russian name should appear, but I have no issue with it in the lead since it may still be known by that name to many. I think any other significant names that the city carried could be included in the "Names" section. --NoGhost (talk) 22:33, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not think this corresponds to current practice.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:36, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Familiar to older generations? In contrast to Lviv/Lvov, Mensk/Minsk, and Almaty/Alma Ata, the Russian name of Bukhara is Bukhara. Well, it's Бухара́, but older generations of English speakers (English speakers being this encyclopedia's target audience) will be no more aware of that than they are of Buxoro or Бухоро. Largoplazo (talk) 10:15, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. (pinged by bot) Russian is the second largest ethnicity in Uzbekistan, though it is a minority. So, Russian names should be included if at all any other scripts than Uzbek are included. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:15, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Conditional Support, but not in the lede. <span style="color:#ddd;font-family:Futura, Sans-Serif;text-shadow:1px 1px 3px #111;">T P  ✎ ✓ 16:38, 9 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yessince it is a former Soviet state, but not in lead. Since Uzbek is the only national language of Uzbekistan (apparently), I believe that should be the only language included in the opening sentence. I don't understand having Uzbek and Tajik and Russian and Persian in the lead sentence. ‡ Єl Cid of ᐺalencia ᐐT₳LKᐬ  04:41, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I restored Tajik since the Bukhara population is predominantly Tajik.--Ymblanter (talk) 05:31, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose The inclusion of the Tajik name with Cyrillic characters suffice, although I recognize more of the sources cited are in Russian than Tajik. The Russian language has a very small influence in the area. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 17:04, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. If there are credible sources that refer to the city by its Russian name, then I don't see why it shouldn't be included (similar to Belarus/Belorussia). If the lead feels cluttered, feel free to move it to the "Names" section. Toreightyone (talk) 01:20, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Could you please clarify your position. What do you need by referring to the city by its Russian name? Of course every single Russian source refers to the city by its Russian name. Same way as every Swahili source refers to the city by its Swahili name. If you mean English sources, then the (transliterated) Russian name happens to be exactly the same as the English name, which is the name of the article.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:23, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Tajik name?
Does Tajik name worths including in the article's lead? I do not recall Uzbekistan being a part of Tajikistan. Best, Lingveno (talk) 06:21, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I do not have a strong opinion, but we do not stick only to official names - since the population of Bukhara is predominantly ethnically Tajik, I would say yes. This should obviously equally apply to ethnically Uzbek towns outside of Uzbekistan, in Kyrgyzstan for example.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:33, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Changes To Naming section
I recently added a couple of paragraphs about the history of the name “Bukhara”, along with names of the city in different languages and made the introduction more informative. But every single one of my edits was deleted by user Qahramani44. He said that the reason he removed the edits was because “it’s not biased if the information comes from credible sources”. I suppose he was referring, to a line that went “tajiks make up a sizable minority in the city”. This is something i read in a recent article on ethnographies of Central Asia, so there was no personal bias involved. However, this was only sentence, but i got whole paragraphs taken down by that user for no apparent reason what so ever. Even the IPA pronunciation, and a sentence about Avicenna being born in the city along with Bukhari was deleted, even though this has nothing whatsoever to do with any race or ethnicity. I credited my sources from several well trusted websites such as Encyclopedia Irænica, however even an addition from that website itself was deleted. And at this point i cannot perceive it as anything other than personal or ethnic bias. I am not from Central Asia myself, however deleting whole scores of paragraphs, just because you feel like it, really doesn’t seem fair. I agree that the naming in russian and sanskrit should be deleted, as i saw that these names weren’t allowed. However taking down the information completely in line with every rule really seems undeserved, and biased. Pigeon de Ville (talk) 23:38, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * transoxiana.com.ar and umid.uz are not WP:RS. And Encyclopædia Iranica's article was already cited before your edits. Actually in your first edit you added your very own POV to the lead of article. The rest of your edits needs some reliable sources written by some experts. --Wario-Man (talk) 03:51, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Your opinion? It would be good if you expand "name/etymology" by using some scholary content. --Wario-Man (talk) 04:06, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * appears to have knowledge concerning this issue. Perhaps he can shed some light on this. --Kansas Bear (talk) 04:15, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Understandable. But what about the chronological order. I moved the Encyclopedia Irænica theory to be higher, because it also related to the early origins of the name, and put it before “Bokhara in 19th century” paragraph. And on that note, i added the more complete paragraph from Encyclopedia Irænica, what was the wrong part on that regard? I didn’t say that i was the first one to cite it though, my point was, that i added the fuller paragraph from the source. Pigeon de Ville (talk) 05:08, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Also on the point of POV, i think you’re referring to the Tajik and Uzbek sentence? In case you are, it was from the official statement of the Uzbek Government and not from my personal POV. If it is erroneous, as has been pointed out, i have nothing against it, as it is out of my personal concern to meddle in ethnic differences. This was a small inclusion, however my main topic of concern was in the naming section, and i agree to reverting changes if something is from a sketchy source or is in any other ways not reliable. That’s why, my final questions are laid out in the previous text. Pigeon de Ville (talk) 05:34, 1 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Chronological order? Edit it and I will review your changes. For the rest of your edits, look for reliable sources/references; e.g. etymology/name and history require reliable/academic sources written by some Iranologists, Turkologists, or historians who are expert in Central Asian topics. --Wario-Man (talk) 06:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi hello apologies for the late reply, but appreciate the guidance for later.
 * By chronological order i meant to put the article about the 19th century name of Bokhara after the Sogdian etymological theory, so like this:
 * According to the Encyclopædia Iranica the name Bukhara is possibly derived from the Sogdian βuxārak ("Place of Good Fortune")
 * Bukhara was known as Bokhara in 19th- and early-20th-century English publications and as Buhe/Puhe(捕喝) in Tang Chinese.
 * and an additional change to the position of the Tang name, since it was at a completely different and a significantly older period than the name of Bokhara, with which it shares the paragraph.
 * P.S i didn’t change the order because without the prior discussion here it would get reverted back anyways, so take a look and let me know what you think. Pigeon de Ville (talk) 18:10, 30 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Feel free to edit that part. --Wario-Man (talk) 18:49, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Minor changed to the intro and link reliabilities
Hi there

I made a few changes to the intro, since the pronunciation section especially, was getting too clogged with many unnecessary pronunciations, specifically, the separate pronunciation charts for US and UK English. With the IPA already being included, I do not see why these two different pronunciations would be necessary, since English is not in wide use in the city or anything.

Next change was the removal of Tajik in favor of Classical Persian remaining. The modern population speaks Tajik, however since the type of Persian that has had greater historical impact was classical Persian, i thought it should be included, especially since other varieties are not widely written in and haven't been in wide use since Bukhara didn’t become part of the Tajik SSR.

However, if Tajik were to be chosen, i’d say that the more archaic form of Classical Persian should be removed, since the local Tajik dialect according to several papers, has acquired several distinct (and quite interesting) features. The identity of people in the city is more Tajik too, while Classical Persian, even though having historical impact, hasn’t been in spoken and written use for almost a century. In case both Tajik and Classical Persian were to be included, then Chaghatai Turkish would have to be included too, for its 500 years of usage in documentation, literature and speech. However it would make the introduction too long once again, so opting for either one of Tajik or Persian names would be proper.

Furthermore, i added the fact that Uzbek is spoken as a second language by most residents, since the bilingualism of residents speaking Tajik and Uzbek is very common and has been in place for several hundred years. I didn’t add Russian, since it doesn’t seem to be spoken by a significant percentage of the population.

And lastly, about the very commonly used reference on this article, a.e “History of Clumsy Delimitation”. I went through the article, and it seems to be overtly biased in its view that Tajiks and the Tajik language have been mistreated by all the other ethnic groups and governments. Moreover, it bends a series of facts and chooses to ignore others in order to choose its agenda, so it’s reliability for such a frequent use in this article is doubtful.

While i’m not denying the historical influence of the Persionate culture, and the majority of the Tajik residents, references for the information should be chosen in a more neutral and unbiased manner, since there are other, non biased documents able to provide the same information.

I don’t think i said anything controversial here, so let’s keep ethnically motivated arguments away from the purely academic discussion. Pigeon de Ville (talk) 19:31, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Chinese name
Why doesn't the current version of this article mention that the Chinese name (since the Sui and Tang dynasties) of Bukhara was "An Guo" (安国)? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 03:49, 11 March 2023 (UTC)