Bangladesh's silk city on the Padma riverbank — Varendra Museum treasures, mango orchards, and a quiet riverine grandeur
Rajshahi is one of Bangladesh's cleanest and most pleasant cities — a university town on the Padma River's northern bank with wide tree-lined boulevards, famous mangoes from the surrounding Barind Tract, and one of the finest museums in Bangladesh. The Varendra Research Museum holds the country's most important collection of Hindu and Buddhist sculpture, including pieces from Mahasthangarh (one of the earliest urban settlements in the Indian subcontinent). The Padma riverfront has a melancholy grandeur — the river has withdrawn dramatically from the city over recent decades, leaving a wide sa…
Rajshahi was an important centre of the Bengal Sultanate and later Mughal provincial administration — the Barind Tract around it was one of the most agriculturally productive regions of Mughal Bengal. The Varendra Research Museum was founded in 1910 by the Maharaja of Natore and the Bengali intellectual Akshay Kumar Maitreya, making it the oldest museum in Bangladesh and East Bengal. The area around Rajshahi — particularly Paharpur (60km north) — contains the ruins of Somapura Mahavihara, one of the greatest Buddhist monasteries of ancient Asia, built in the 8th century CE during the Pala Emp…