Sheki Khan's Palace: What to Know Before You Go

Sheki Khan’s Palace is the most famous building in Sheki, a small city at the foot of the Greater Caucasus. It is small for a palace. What draws people is the work on its walls and windows.

This page is about the palace and the fortress around it. Our Sheki guide covers the rest of the city, the food and the stay. Facts here come from azerbaijan.travel, the Reserves Management Center that runs the site, and UNESCO.

The fortress first

The palace stands inside Sheki Fortress. The tourism board calls the fortress the old citadel of the Sheki khanate, which lasted from 1743 to 1819. UNESCO adds that Sheki was the first and strongest of the khanates in the Caucasus.

The fortress sits high in the city. The tourism board says the palace stands at one of Sheki’s highest points. UNESCO places it in the north-east of the town.

The Reserves Management Center notes one odd detail. The palace has walls of its own on every side, even though it already sits inside the fortress. That was usual in eastern towns of the time.

Who built it, and when

This is where the sources split.

The tourism board’s main Sheki page says the palace went up in the early 1760s. Its 2020 press release names Huseyn Khan and the year 1762. Another tourism board page says the end of the 18th century.

The Reserves Management Center gives two dates: 1760 or 1797, depending on the source. It also calls the palace one of the main buildings of the new Sheki. That town was built after a flood in 1772 destroyed the old one. UNESCO confirms the 1772 flood.

Those claims do not all fit. We state them as the sources give them. Treat the year as open.

The windows

The palace is best known for its shebeke. The tourism board explains how it is made. Small wooden pieces form a frame. Thousands of bits of coloured glass fill the gaps. There is no glue and no nail anywhere in it.

The press release says the facade is covered with shebeke.

Walls, ceilings and the trees

Inside, the walls are painted with scenes and fine patterns. The tourism board points to the frescoes and to tiles laid in exact order. The Reserves Management Center calls the palace a blend of several crafts of Azerbaijan in one building.

Outside the main facade stand old plane trees. The tourism board gives their age as 500 years.

Where the money came from

UNESCO links the palace to silk. From the late 18th century, Sheki grew rich on silkworms and the trade in cocoons. Houses had tall roofs so silkworms could be raised in the airy attics. The same wealth paid for the palace and for fine merchant houses. Some of those houses share its features, such as shebeke windows and fireplaces called bukhara.

The palace in numbers

Fact	Source and figure
Khanate it served	Sheki khanate, 1743 to 1819
Built	Early 1760s, or 1760 or 1797 by other sources
Flood that moved the town	1772
World Heritage listing	2019, criteria (ii) and (v)
Listed area	120.5 ha, with a 146 ha buffer zone
Protected since	1967, in the Yukhari Bash reserve

Tickets, hours and guides

The palace is run by the Reserves Management Center, part of the State Tourism Agency. It sells tickets online on its own site, heritage.org.az. We do not print the price.

We found no published opening hours for the palace on 5 October 2026. Check before you drive out. Ask too about photos inside, as no rule is published.

The tourism board says you can join a tour with a local guide. A guide helps here, because much of the story is in the paintings.

Next door: the Shebeke Workshop

A short walk from the palace, inside the fortress, is the Shebeke Workshop. It shows old panels next to new ones. You can watch each stage of the work. There is also a class where you build a small piece yourself.

The tourism board lists more stops inside the walls. They include the Museum of Folk and Applied Arts, the House of Craftsmen and the ABAD ceramics centre. Our page on markets and souvenirs covers buying crafts back in Baku.

A name worth knowing

Until 1968 the city was called Nukha, after a nearby village. Old maps and books may still use that name.

Arranging it

Sheki is a long drive from Baku, so we plan it with a night there. RH Travel can plan the drive, a guide for the palace and a stop at the workshop. Send us your dates and we will build the trip from there.