The ruins of a pow­er­ful ancient fortress, locat­ed in the Merv oasis, on the ter­ri­to­ry of Turk­menistan. The pic­turesque ruins are shroud­ed in many leg­ends and arouse gen­uine inter­est among tourists and sci­en­tists. The for­ti­fied set­tle­ment, whose name trans­lates as “the fortress of the infi­dels”, was built in the 4th-3rd cen­turies BC. It was inhab­it­ed by mas­ter pot­ters, millers, flour mer­chants and black­smiths.