Research of the Semirechye expedition

Semirechye expedition explored the monuments of the Chuy valley. The main work was carried out at the site of Aktobe, located near the confluence of the Chu and Aksu rivers. The central part of the monument (the citadel and shahristan) occupies about 7.5 hectares. A territory adjoins it with buildings of various densities, surrounded by two rows of ramparts. The length of the settlement along the river is 10.5 km and the width is 2-4 km (mainly the entire first terrace above the floodplain).

The estate, located 1 km south of the central ruins of the city, was investigated. The residential part originally consisted of the main square room (3.3х3.3 m), surrounded around the perimeter by a bypass corridor 2.8 m wide and each of the four contours 4.5 m long. The entrance to the central room was in the middle of the southern wall; its width is 1.2 m. Along the eastern, northern and western walls of the room, a solid sub-room 0.95 m high and 0.75 m wide was arranged. It had a two-stage cornice and a plinth formed by protrusions of mud bricks. The side planes of the podium are covered with yellow coating. There was a semi-circular niche (80X50 cm) 30 cm deep. Fragments of plaster with red and yellow painting were found in the rubble of the central hall and the western bypass corridor. The time of functioning of the original building complex is determined by the Türgesh coin of the 7th-8th centuries found in the filling of the central hall.

At the end of the 9th-10th centuries, the building was rebuilt. The central rampart and the bypass corridor were covered with bricks (42-40x22-18x10-8 cm) to a height of 1.2 m. The walls were completed with the same gray brick, and from the inside some of the rooms were reinforced with a thin (up to 20 cm) layer of pakhsa. The corridors were blocked with pakhsa walls, and each willow of the contours became an independent room. A passage was punched in the southern wall of the hall. Tandoors, portable braziers were built on the floors. In one of the rooms, there was some industrial complex (melted burnt bricks have been preserved). If the purpose of the original complex is still unclear, then the nature of the new building is precise - a residential estate.

The second excavation was laid on the ruins of a structure located in the shared courtyard of several estates. Here, the remains of a winepress of the 10th-12th centuries were unearthed, which was located in a rectangular building (30 sq. m.), which consisted of a corridor and a room where there was a pressing platform in the form of a box made of rectangular burnt bricks. Its dimensions are 2.2х1.6 m, the height of the side is 0.3 m. A chute connected the site with a khum dug into the floor.