Mary is a typical provincial town, established in the 1880s by the tsarist armies as their next large hub on the Trans-Caspian Railway project, and successor of Bronze Age Margush and medieval Merw.

A visit to the Central Bazaar is pleasant in its own right, but when you look carefully at the older stone structures, you find the remains of a tsarist bathhouse and teahouse. The Russian-orthodox Prokovskaya Church, the Art Gallery and a large newly-built mosque are also well worth a visit.