The article said Samarkand, the desert city that was the capital of Tamerlane’s global empire, is both imperial and exotic, full of palaces and mosques, madrasas and mausoleums, soaring minarets and massive domes, all of them appointed with ornate blue tiles and hundreds of years of history.

Shah-i-Zinda necropolis was built between the 11th and 19th Centuries. It houses the graves of Tamerlane’s relatives and, according to legend, the cousin of the prophet Mohammed.

The Bibi Khanum mosque, which Tamerlane built after his campaign in India at the close of the 14th Century, originally featured as many as 450 marble columns and was constructed with the help of almost 100 elephants.

Even though Tamerlane – or Timur as he’s usually known in Uzbekistan – established an empire that stretched from present day India to Turkey, and Russia to Saudi Arabia, the heart of his dominion was the Registan (or “sandy place” in Persian) in Samarkand. This square today it hosts major events, including music festivals.

Samarkand is a city of domes, some of which are more beautiful when viewed from the inside. Spread across its skyline, these domes are soaring testaments to Tamerlane’s architectural legacy, which helped the city become a Unesco World Heritage Site.