Yekedeshik Cave Town

Yekedeshik Cave Town

Yekedeshik is a State historical and architectural reserve, located in the district of Tagta-Bazar. The word “yekedeshik” – from Turkmen language means “one orifice” because of the cave’s only one entrance. In the spring period one can see here open land covered with lots of tulips and field mushrooms.
There are many versions of how this cave appeared. According to one of them it was dug by the legions of Alexander’s the Great army. People used the cave as a dwelling. Inside there are blocs of rooms similar to modern ones where one can see bedrooms, kitchens and others. The cave consists of two floors. On the lower floor people collected water for their needs. There are 44 rooms. Axe-like tools in the rock of sandstone had carved the cave. A straight, 37 metres long corridor comes up against niche, which resembles an altar. On the right and the left there are rectangular rooms and one of them, almost quadrate in plan has a spherical ceiling and a dome. There is a suggestion that Yekedeshik was a monastery, because more or less organised complexes of artificial caves serve in Central Asia as monasteries – usually Buddhist, sometimes Christian. Nowadays the cave is under archaeological excavations.