Shaheed Minar

Forty-eight metres of borrowed architecture: an Egyptian base, a Syrian column, a Turkish dome, stacked in 1828 for Sir David Ochterlony and rededicated in 1969 to the martyrs of the freedom movement. Mark Twain, passing through, called it the cloud-kissing monument. The stair inside is normally closed, so the column is something to look at rather than climb, from the Esplanade edge of the Maidan, and best once the floodlights come on and the shaft turns pale against the sky.

The Maidan's tallest exclamation, borrowed from Egypt, Syria and Turkey at once