The Tomb of Daniel — Khoja Daniyar — sits on a low ridge above the Afrasiyab ruins, on the northeast edge of the old city. A whitewashed building covers a single very long stone sarcophagus, eighteen metres from end to end. Pilgrims of three faiths come, and on most days you will see Uzbek families touching the cloth-draped stone and Russian Orthodox priests blessing the spot from the side door.
The tomb is set in a quiet grove with a sacred spring at the foot of the hill — believed to have miraculous healing properties — and an ancient pistachio tree that, the keepers will tell you, fruited for the first time in centuries when Patriarch Alexy II visited in 1996. The walk down from the upper tomb past the spring and through the trees is one of the more peaceful corners of Samarkand.