Toki Sarofon

 The Toki-Sarrafon is one of Bukhara’s four remained bazaars. This trading dome was used mostly for money exchange during the era of the Silk Road. Indian shop owners frequently exchanged money inside this bazaar. The site is no longer a money exchange center, but it now has lots of great shops where you can pick up interesting souvenirs.

Today, Toki Sarrofon is a popular attraction, inside of which there are mainly souvenir shops and shops selling antiques, souvenirs, handicrafts, such as dishes, clothes, coins, jewelry, figurines, carpets, books, musical instruments, paintings, etc. The building of the bazaar is located in the historical center of Bukhara, on the streets of Bahauddin Nakshbandi and Arabon, next to the Shahrud canal (most of this canal is now underground), a hundred meters southwest of the Lyabi-Hauz complex. In one part of the bazaar building there is a small mosque of the same name, as well as the Sarrofon hammam.

Until the middle of the 20th century, it was used as an ordinary bazaar, where everyday things and accessories were sold, being one of the main covered bazaars of Bukhara. The building of the covered bazaar was built in the traditional Persian style, and is no different from similar covered traditional bazaars of the ancient cities of Iran, such as Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz or Mashhad.

The name Toki Sarrofon comes from the Persian and Tajik languages, and is translated as the Dome changed (Sarrof - money changers, Sarrofon - money changers), since in the first few centuries of the existence of this bazaar, a large number of money changers and merchants were located in it, there was an exchange of currencies between those who arrived in Bukhara by merchants and merchants from the Khorezm Khanate, the Kokand Khanate, the Iranian Empire, Afghanistan, the Russian Empire, Arabia, the Ottoman Empire, the Chinese Empire, and India.