Kyz Kala

This is the most photographed/famous bit of Merv and, rightly so, it was quite spectacular. The two structures date back to the seventh century. Local legend says that Greater Kyz Kala was the girls' castle and Lesser Kyz Kala was for the boys. Young men wanting marry one of the girls had to fire an apple from one complex to the other and because they obviously found this difficult, given the distance, it prompted the invention of the catapult ... nice story anyway.