Confucius Square

It is one of the city's three active Orthodox churches, and the largest one (there are others which are inactive), subordinate to the Samarkand Deanery of the Tashkent and Uzbekistan Diocese (Central Asian Metropolitan District) of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Named after Metropolitan Alexei of Moscow, who lived in the 14th century, the church was built in 1912 in the Russian Revival architecture style, originally for a military garrison. Orthodoxy is the main Christian denomination in Samarkand. Most of the local Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Georgians, some of the local Koreans, and other small ethnic groups (for example, Greeks, Latvians, and Moldovans) that arrived during the Imperial and Soviet periods are Orthodox.

The city's only Catholic Church. It was built in 1916 in the neo-Gothic style by Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war brought here by the Russian Empire during World War I. Most of the priests in this church are Polish. In Samarkand, Catholics include local Poles, local Ukrainians with roots in Western Ukraine, and expats from Catholic countries. The church is part of the Apostolic Administration of Uzbekistan, which is subordinate to the Vatican. Services are held in Russian and English.

It houses a Museum of Religious and National Tolerance, as well as an art gallery. The building was constructed in 1882. During the Soviet era, the large bell tower and domes on the roof of the church were destroyed by communists and atheists. A small airplane was placed in place of the bell tower, and the building was used for various purposes, such as housing the paramilitary organization DOSAAF. After the collapse of the USSR, the church was no longer suitable for worship due to its destroyed bell tower, and was therefore turned into a museum. This is one of the 3-4 inactive former churches in Samarkand.

The place's only Armenian Church, built in 1903 by local Armenian residents with the permission of the Russian Imperial authorities. Samarkand is home to the second-largest Armenian diaspora in Uzbekistan, after Tashkent. Armenians have been living in Central Asia since the late 14th century, and their population increased during the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the USSR, most of the local Armenians remained in independent Uzbekistan and obtained local citizenship, while a small number of them moved to Armenia, Russia, Europe, and the United States. Local Armenians belong to the category of so-called Eastern Armenians. In Samarkand, they have shashlik (barbecue) bars where you can try pork shashlik, as well as local homemade wine and cognac.

Burial place of the Sufi teacher Burkhan ad-Din Sagardji, who died in the 1380s. It became engulfed by later buildings around Gur-e-Emir, which were cleared away in 1996 so the mausoleum complex was rediscovered and rebuilt.

The warlord Timur or Tamerlane (c 1320-1405) preferred to campaign in spring / summer and lay up during the cruel steppes winter. On his last sortie, already in his eighties, in a hurry to attack Ming China, he sickened and died at Farab (nowadays Otrar), to no great sorrow by the Chinese ambassadors he'd imprisoned. It was impossible to transport him through the snow to the tomb he'd prepared at Shahrisabz, so he was laid here, in the tomb intended for his grandson who'd died of battle wounds in Turkey in 1403. Both bodies were reburied in 1409, as it became the Timurid dynastic crypt. The mausoleum is richly tiled and decorated: the piece of jade over Timur's headstone, the largest in the world, is a poke in the eye of the Emperor of China, since it was purloined from his palace.