Kalta Minor: Khiva's Unfinished Minaret
Why Khiva's Kalta Minor stops at 29 metres, how its tiles were made, the legends about its builder, the best photo spots and what your ticket covers.
Fourteen metres wide at the base, twenty-nine metres tall, and then nothing. Kalta Minor, just inside Khiva's West Gate, looks like a giant turquoise drum that someone forgot to finish. That's exactly what it is. Its name means "short minaret", and it was meant to be the tallest in the Muslim world.
It's also the most photographed building in Khiva, and the one you'll walk past a dozen times a day. Here's the story behind it, what's worth noticing up close, and how to photograph it well.
Why it was never finished
Muhammad Amin Khan, ruler of the Khanate of Khiva, started the minaret in 1852, next to the large madrasah he'd just built. He wanted something no other ruler had. According to the plan, it would rise 70 to 80 metres, and some accounts put the target even higher. That would have beaten the 73-metre Qutb Minar in Delhi and every minaret in Bukhara.
In 1855 the khan was killed in a battle near Sarakhs, in what's now Turkmenistan, and the work stopped. The minaret had reached 29 metres, the height recorded by Uzbekistan's national tourism site and most historians. None of his successors picked it up again, and it has stood like this for 170 years.
You'll hear a more colourful version from guides. In the legend, the khan learned that his architect had agreed to build an even taller minaret for the Emir of Bukhara, Khiva's great rival. The khan ordered the architect's execution, the architect fled, and the tower stayed half-built. It's a good story. There's no evidence for it, and the khan's death in battle is a perfectly sufficient explanation.
Why it's so wide
The squat shape is what makes Kalta Minor look so odd. It's not a design choice. The base, 14.2 metres across, was built for a tower three times as high. The walls were meant to taper sharply as they rose, which is how builders made very tall brick minarets stable. Stop at 29 metres, and what's left is a fat stump with the proportions of a tower's first third.
For comparison, Khiva's tallest finished minaret, at the Islam Khoja complex a few hundred metres away, is about 57 metres high but far narrower. Stand between the two and the contrast tells the story better than any sign.
The tiles up close
Kalta Minor is covered entirely in glazed tiles and majolica, from base to rim, which is rare in Central Asia. Most minarets, including every other one in Khiva, use plain brick with bands of tile. Here the whole surface is decorated in horizontal bands: geometric patterns in turquoise, white and deep blue, with bands of inscription between them.
Walk right up to the base and look closely. You'll see that the patterns are built from small individual tiles, not painted on. You'll also see the difference between original tiles, which have slightly uneven colour and fine crackling, and later restoration pieces, which are flatter and brighter. Much of what you see is original.
You can't climb it. There's no internal staircase open to visitors, and the top is simply the unfinished rim. If you want a view over Khiva from a minaret, climb the Islam Khoja minaret instead, which charges its own fee.
The madrasah next door
The large building beside it is the Muhammad Amin Khan Madrasah, built in 1851–1852 and one of the biggest in Central Asia, with more than 125 student cells around its courtyard. It's now a hotel, the Orient Star, so you can sleep in a former student's cell a few metres from the minaret. Non-guests can usually look into the courtyard, and it's worth a polite request.
Tickets and practical details
Kalta Minor stands on the main street just inside the West Gate (Ota Darvoza), so you can't miss it. Seeing the outside is free for anyone walking through the old city. The monuments and museums of Itchan Kala are covered by a combined ticket, which costs 250,000 som and is valid for two days (last checked: July 2026). Our Khiva travel guide explains exactly what the ticket includes.
Itchan Kala as a whole has been on UNESCO's World Heritage list since 1990, the first site in Uzbekistan to be inscribed.
How to photograph it
From the West Gate you're looking east along the main street, so the side of the minaret facing you catches the sun in the late afternoon, while in the early morning the light comes from behind it. Plan around that:
- Early morning. The street is almost empty before 8am. Walk past the minaret and shoot back towards the gate, with the sun on the tiles.
- From the West Gate, late afternoon. Shoot through the arch for a framed view, with the low sun lighting the tiles. It's the classic Khiva postcard shot.
- From the walls. The rampart walk near the Kunya Ark gives a view down onto the minaret with the town's roofs behind it. There's a small fee for the wall.
- After dark. Kalta Minor is lit at night, and the street is quiet once day visitors have gone. A small travel tripod or a steady wall helps.
The midday light is harsh and flattens the tile colours, and that's also when tour groups arrive. For more ideas, our Uzbekistan photography guide covers timing and etiquette across the country.
How long to spend
Fifteen minutes is enough to see it properly: walk round the base, study the tiles and read the story. The best way to enjoy Kalta Minor, though, is to pass it several times at different hours. It changes from pale and dusty at noon to deep blue at dusk.
If you're planning a wider trip, Khiva is usually the last stop on the classic route. Our Bukhara to Khiva transport guide covers the train and road options for getting there.
Featured image: Hylgeriak (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons.