Getting There
You can get there by taxi or take the buses 11, 12, 17 at the bus stop in the area of Teze Bazaar, or the bus 22 in the city center near the Juma Mosque. All these buses go past the Caravanserai, where you must get off and it is around a 10-15-minute walk from there.
The best way to go there by car is to drive along the Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh street till Sheki State Drama Theatre, where it is necessary to turn right at the traffic lights and left to the 20 Yanvar street at the roundabout. Continue till the Grand Restaurant in the city centre and turn right at the traffic lights to the Mirza Fatali Akhundzade street and driving past Omar Efendi Mosque ahead turn left to the Aghvanlar street. Go straight and take the 2nd turn right to the Otaq Eshiyi street and 2nd left further (the name of the street remains the same) and you will see the Palace on your left in 2 minutes.
What to Expect
Shekikhanov’s house or Shekikhanov’s palace, is a monument of Azerbaijani architecture, located in the Sheki preserve area outside the castle walls on a seemingly random suburban street, the second royal residence in Sheki isn’t quite as opulent as its palatial cousin – on the outside, at least.
Step inside, and you will find more beautiful wall paintings, carved wooden doors and examples of Shebeke glass, albeit on a much smaller scale.
Contrary to what Google Maps and most other websites try to tell you, this is not a Winter Palace! Rather it served as a residence for relatives of the Khan, who lived here year-round. It dates back to the same era as the main palace but was decorated by a different artist.
There are some architectural features that distinguish the Shekikhanovs’ House from the palace of Sheki Khan, as well as from other historical architectural monuments of Sheki. Its main distinguishing feature is related to wall paintings. Here, only the central room of the second floor is decorated with paintings. Angels are depicted in these paintings, which is not used in any of the Sheki monuments, not only in the Khan Palace. There are also illustrations drawn to the works of Nizami Ganjavi based on a certain subject, as well as images drawn to Jami’s “Yusif and Zuleykha”, in which people are depicted as individual portraits, which is the main feature that differentiates the Shekikhanovs’ House from the palace. Human portraits were not used in the depictions of the Khan’s Palace. At the same time, parts of the “Shebeke” network in the Shekikhanovs’ House are larger than the details in the “shebeke” network of the Sheki Khan’s Palace and have undergone more restoration.
The original network grids are left only in the upper part of the second floor and the difference is clearly felt. Here, as well, the windows slide opens from the bottom to the top and the rooms turn into balconies.
History
Another interesting architectural monument of the late 18th century which attracts tourists on Sheki tour.The Shekikhanovs’ House was only rediscovered by historians quite recently. As the story goes, after the Sheki Khan was exiled by the Russians, descendants of the family continued living inside the house before it was abandoned, fell into ruin, and then was almost completely forgotten.
Reconstruction began in the early 2010s. Like at the other palace up the road, 90% of the picture-book murals in the guest room are original.
Facilities Available
- Buses
- Taxis
- Hotels
- Shops
- Cafes
