Merv was one of the great cities of the world, and today it is a field of mud-brick walls in the Karakum desert. At its height in the twelfth century, under the Seljuk sultan Sanjar, Merv was among the biggest cities on Earth, a Silk Road oasis with libraries, mosques, markets and an elaborate water system fed by canals from the Murghab river. The Mongols destroyed it in 1221, and although a later city grew nearby, the old centre never recovered. The ancient cities of Merv, which spread across a series of walled sites from the time of the Persians to the fifteenth century, were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1999.
Abdullah Khan Kala is one of the later sites, a fortified citadel of the Timurid period, built in the fifteenth century when Merv was revived under Shah Rukh, a son of Timur, with great mud-brick walls and towers still standing among the sand. A koshk, in Turkmen, is a fortified building or manor house, and the imaret, a word of Ottoman origin, is a kitchen or hospice, so the name suggests a charitable building near the fortress. Not far away, the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, a huge brick cube with a double dome, stands as the best-preserved building in the whole complex.
The landscape is pure desert, flat, dusty and enormous, with the horizon marked by crumbling walls and the thin green line of irrigated fields near the modern town of Bayramaly. Summer temperatures are extreme, with highs above forty degrees, and winters are cold and windy. Spring, with a thin carpet of green and flowers, and early autumn are the best times. The wind can blow dust across the road.
Riding in Turkmenistan is a formal business. Foreign visitors generally need a visa or a transit permit, and often a guide, and you need to arrange vehicle entry in advance, so careful planning and current information are essential. Fuel is cheap, but supplies are not always reliable, and stations can be far apart on desert roads. Bayramaly is a town of about seventy-five thousand, with services, and Mary, the regional capital, is nearby. Carry water, avoid the midday heat and respect any signs or guards at the site.