Palace of Shaki Khans
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- Its date is debated: a 1946 article credited it to a Shiraz builder in 1790, yet Sheki celebrated the palace's 250th anniversary in 2012.
- The palace murals were painted in tempera, and some take their inspiration from the poems of the medieval poet Nizami Ganjavi.
- Between 1848 and 1851 the Russian viceroy Prince Vorontsov ordered a renovation, carried out by the architect Cambiaccio with local Sheki masters.
- During the 1955–1965 restoration, a workshop was set up in the upper ceremonial hall and the architects lived in the rooms beside it.
- The surviving pavilion was once part of a complex that included a winter palace, residences for the khan's family and servants' quarters.
- Besides Abbas Kuli, the frescoes are signed by Ali Kuli, Kurban Kuli and Mirza Jafar from Shemakha and Usta Gambar from Shusha.
- The two floors were reached separately: petitioners entered below from the south, while two stairways on the north side led up to the family's rooms.
- In 1968 the Yukhari-Bash quarter around the palace was declared a historical and architectural reserve.
Why it is worth it
The Palace of Shaki Khans is a small two-storey pavilion inside the walls of the old fortress of Sheki, in the foothills of the Greater Caucasus in north-western Azerbaijan. It was the summer residence of the rulers of the Shaki Khanate and is usually dated to 1797, under Muhammad Husayn Khan Mushtaq. In 2019 the historic centre of Sheki, including the palace, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The building is only about 32 metres long and 8.5 metres deep, set among old plane trees in front of a pool. Its fame rests on decoration of an intensity rarely found in so compact a space. Much of the main facade is a screen of shebeke — small pieces of coloured glass set into a lattice of carved wood that is assembled without nails or glue. The iwans that open into the central halls are crowned by muqarnas hoods, gilded on the ground floor and set with mirror fragments on the upper floor, and the rest of the exterior is covered with floral tile panels in dark blue, turquoise and ochre.
Inside, every wall is painted. The ground floor served clerks and petitioners, the upper floor the khan's family and guests, and the layout of both floors is the same: three rooms in a row, reached through narrow iwans. The murals range from vases of flowers and birds to hunting and battle scenes in the upper halls; signatures name artists from Shemakha and Shusha, among them Abbas Kuli, who may also have designed the building. When the sun comes through the shebeke, the floors and walls are dappled with coloured light — the effect the palace is best known for.
The pavilion is the only survivor of a larger palace complex; the other buildings had been demolished by the mid-19th century. It has been restored several times, most thoroughly in 2002–2004 by a German team supported by the World Bank.
Getting there
The palace is in the upper part of Sheki, within the fortress walls. The nearest airport is Gabala International Airport (GBB), about 63 km away; Ganja (GNJ) is about 90 km away, and Baku's Heydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD), with far more international connections, is about 254 km away by straight line.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Palace of Shaki Khans in Shaki, northwestern Azerbaijan, is a historic monument that once served as the summer residence of the Shaki khans. It was constructed in 1797 under the rule of Muhammad Husayn Khan Mushtaq.
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