Old Talas bathhouse reopens with spring water piped again

TALAS — The domed bathhouse of the Old City, built in the Kokand period, reopened yesterday after restoration, with water from the Sarchashma Springs at the foot of the citadel terrace piped to it again.

For generations the springs fed the quarter's public fountains and the bathhouse through channels of fired brick. Their flow has fallen since the 1980s, which hydrologists attribute to groundwater pumping in the city, and the old channels had long since broken or silted up. In the restoration, carried out by the city government, a new pipe now carries spring water to the bathhouse along the line of the old channel, and its brick domes, plastered walls and stone floors have been repaired.

The first bathers arrived in the morning. "My grandmother came here as a girl," said a woman who lives in a lane behind the bathhouse. "She said the water from Sarchashma made your hair soft. We will see."

The bathhouse will open six days a week, with separate days for men and women. The city's architecture department said the springs did not yield enough water to restore the quarter's fountains as well.