Fortress
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Ark of Bukhara
The Ark of Bukhara is a massive fifth-century earthen fortress and former royal citadel in the historic center of Bukhara. Serving for over a millennium as a city within a city for the Emirs of Bukhara, the Ark housed royal palaces, mints, court reception halls, and infamous subterranean dungeons known as the Zindan. Most infamous was the Bug Pit ('Siah Chah'), a dark twenty-foot-deep subterranean hole filled with venomous insects, rodents, and reptiles, where British officers Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly were tortured before their public execution in 1842. Visitors and museum staff report echoing groans, clanking chains, and phantom execution specters within the dark lower chambers.