The State historical and cultural museum-reserve

«Yezhelgi Taraz eskertkishteri»

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Nametbay Mosque 1887, 1897

The mosque is located in the city of Taraz at the intersection of Tashkent-Baizak Batyr streets, in the old densely built-up quarter. The courtyard complex of the mosque was formed by the end of 1897, it includes a number of premises used for madrassas, darethana, living rooms. The mosque is named for the builder - Nametbai, who donated funds for the construction of the mosque. In the 30s of the twentieth century, as a state property, the mosque was used only as a warehouse for household needs. In the 90s of the twentieth century, the mosque was returned to the Muslim community.

The most valuable architecturally is the building of a mosque of frame-adobe construction, built in 1887. One-story, rectangular in plan, elongated volume consists of a prayer hall and a spacious aivan. The height of the premises is 5 m. The facades are plastered with adobe mortar, do not contain decorative design. Aivan cornice is decorated with a single-row line of small curly elements. Particular interest is the preserved decorative interiors.

The ceilings were solved in an artistically developed wooden beam-rack-mounted ceiling system, traditional for regional architecture: tapered trunks of columns tapering at the top and balks placed on them with a figured profile. The profiles of the aivan’s offsets have a more complex shape, the trunks of the columns at the base are rounded. Attracting attention is the multicolor painting of the walls, columns and timbers of the prayer hall and aivan, made mainly in the range of blue, red and green colors.

The mosque was surveyed in the 1980s and 2001, previously it was not covered in the scientific literature. Restoration work on the courtyard of the mosque was carried out in 2019.