The Tomb of Rudaki

Abu Abdulloh Rudaki is the founder of classic Tajik poetry, lived in the late 9th - early 10th centuries during the Samanid dynasty. He wrote his famous odes and poems in Dari, the classical Persian language.  A talented singer and musician Rudaki was invited by Nasr II bin Ahmad Somoni (914-943) to Bukhara, where he spent most of his life until 937 when he lost his patronage.

   Apart from his own poetical works, Rudaki also made an important contribution to literature by translating the Indian cycle of didactic short stories "Kalila and Dim-na" from Arabic into Dari. He spent his last days in poverty and died in 941 in Panjrud – his home village. Much about the poet's life remains unknown, but however during the excavations and was established that Rudaki died being blind.

  Another famous Tajik Sadrid-din Aini - the founder of contemporary tajik prose, and the famous Russian sculptor-anthropologist Professor Mikhail Gerasimov cleared out many things concerning Rudaki's life. Aini took a deep research over various historical manuscripts and determined the estimate location of Rudaki's grave while Gerasimov, with a group of respective Tajik scholars, found Rudaki's tomb and after identification it was indeed Rudaki who was buried here, restored the grave and in 1958 built a mausoleum.

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