Seyit Jemaleddin Mosque

Just southeast of Ashgabat, near the town of Anau, stand the evocative ruins of the Seyit Jemaleddin Mosque, built in the 15th century during the Timurid era. Its great portal was once decorated with a pair of intertwined dragons in coloured tile — an almost unique motif in Islamic architecture.

Much of the complex was toppled by the catastrophic 1948 Ashgabat earthquake, yet the surviving walls still convey its grandeur — a quiet, atmospheric counterpoint to the capital’s gleaming marble.