The whole complex is surrounded by the wall made of red stone. At the entrance there are three queues: for men, women and VIP. Real Taj Mahal is always better than on photos or in movies. The huge building made of white marble surrounded by four minarets. On the walls are Koran suras beautifully written with black marble. The minarets are a bit inclined outside, they say it's done to prevent them from falling on the building in case of an earthquake.
We are not sure how it can be explained but the most beautiful buildings of India are not palaces and temples, but mausoleums, cenotaphs whatever they are called, made in honor of the dead. Taj Mahal is one of them. Beloved wife of Shah-Djahan, the Moguls emperor, died while giving the birth to their 14th baby. He was so stricken with grief that he decided to build the mausoleum that will be the best in the world, the one that would make the sun and the moon cry.
20 thousand of Indian workers were building the mausoleum for 22 years. This number doesn't include sculptors from Bukhara, calligraphers from Syria and Persia, mosaic workers from South India and other masters from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan... Instead of ordinary bamboo, the scaffolds around the mausoleum are of bricks. They were so huge that taking them to pieces took years. The legend says that the shah let everyone who took bricks might never return them back, by the morning no scaffolds remained. To carry the marble blocks they made a 15 km mount.
However the shah had no time to enjoy the mausoleum. Soon after the construction was ready his son put him to prison in the nearby fortress. So he was staring at the monument from the prison windows. When he died he was buried next to his wife in Taj Mahal.
One may get to Taj Mahal through these gates.
Pool at the mausoleum
In all its splendor
Upper part
Patterns on the marble
Along all the building - semiprecious stones patterns. The needed piece was cut out, and the hole for it in the marble to insert it. So they did thousands of times.
Vertical patterns - suras from Koran made with black marble.
The closer you come the more details you may notice.
On the left is an active mosque. On the right is an identical building.
