The mausoleum of Mahmud Kashgari, the 11th-century scholar who produced the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, lies about 45 kilometres southwest of Kashgar in the village of Upal. It is not a grand monument — a simple domed structure in a walled compound on a low hill above an agricultural valley — but the site is quiet and the setting is appealing, with views of the mountains and the poplar-lined fields below.
Getting there requires renting a bicycle or car from Kashgar, or joining a shared taxi heading south on the Karakoram Highway and getting off at the turn-off for Upal. The combination of Mahmud Kashgari's mausoleum and a ride through the oasis farms makes for a good half-day excursion. The significance of the man buried here is hard to overstate: his work preserved vocabulary, grammar, and oral literature from Turkic cultures across Central Asia at a moment when much of it might otherwise have been lost.