Along with Samarkand and Buchara is Khiva a historical site on what was once the Silk Road.
The Kalta Minor Minaret is an unfinished minaret. The attemp was to build a minaret so high the Khan could see all the way to Buchara. Had it been completed it surely would have been the world's tallest building, but the Khan ( Mohammed Amin) died in 1855 and it was never finished.