Nurullabay Palace

By the end of the nineteenth century Ichan-Kala had no room left for a new palace, so Muhammad Rakhim Khan II chose a garden in Dishan-Kala, the outer town, a short walk north of the walls. It belonged to a wealthy man named Nurullabay, who, the story goes, agreed to sell only if the palace kept his name. It did.

Building in a changing world

Work began in the first years of the twentieth century and was finished in 1912 under the khan’s son, Isfandiyar Khan. By then Khiva had been a Russian protectorate for a generation, and the palace shows it. Local masters carved the doors and columns and laid the majolica, but engineers and craftsmen from Russia and Germany worked alongside them, and fittings were ordered from St Petersburg. The reception hall, built to receive foreign guests, is the most European building of old Khiva: high ceilings with moulded and painted decoration, tiled stoves, parquet, mirrors and chandeliers. Local tradition says some of the furnishings were gifts from the Russian court.

The complex

The palace stands within its own fortified wall, with several courtyards, a madrasah, rooms for servants and a garden with an octagonal pool. It remained the residence of the khan’s family until 1920, when the khanate was abolished and replaced by the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic. Restoration was completed in 2017.

Experiencing it

Combine the visit with a walk through Dishan-Kala. The contrast with Tash-Hauli, built eighty years earlier, tells you how quickly the khanate changed in its final decades.