Afrasiyab & Manizheh

Turanian Princess Manizheh falls in love with Iranian knight Bizhan, which is a Parthian version of the famous story of Romeo and Juliet who could not be together because of their origin. The story of Manizheh and Bizhan has a happy ending although before they met again, got married and lived happily ever after they both had to survive insufferable difficulties. Manizheh having seen Bizhan hunting in the Turanian territories outside her tent, ordered her nurse to bring him to her. After some time spent together, when he was about to leave her, she gave him a portion and lured him to her palace in town, where he was discovered by servants of her father Afrasiyab, King of Turan. Bizhan was about to be executed but at the last minute his death penalty was replaced by prison. For many centuries this scene was depicted by medieval artists with Bizhan sitting in his pit as the protagonist of the story while Manizheh was not even shown. In Shimanovskaya's version there is only Manizheh who is the main heroine of the story. She came to see, feed and console her beloved who is in fact the spectator, sitting in the darkness of the pit looking up with the hope for the light in the end of tunnel of his endless sufferings