What you see: shebeke, frescoes, and the caravanserai

The Khan’s Palace is modest in scale — a two-storey rectangular building about 27 metres long — but overwhelming in ornamental density. Every surface carries meaning. The lower and upper facades are dominated by towering shebeke windows: geometric compositions of walnut and mulberry wood interlocking into patterns of stars, hexagons, and lozenges, with each cell filled by a hand-cut piece of coloured glass (red, blue, green, yellow). No adhesive binds the glass; only the precision of the wooden frames and a lead-solder technique hold the 10,000–14,000 pieces of each window in place. The effect on a sunny afternoon — shards of coloured light sweeping across the interior — is unlike anything else in the Caucasus.

The interior walls are entirely covered with frescoes, a visual language that cuts against the standard conventions of Islamic decoration, which typically avoids human figures. Sheki’s painters depicted mounted hunters in pursuit of deer and lions, warriors in combat, and elaborately costumed courtiers. The fresco programme reads as a narrative of power and pleasure — the ideal world of the Khan projected in pigment onto every wall and ceiling.

A short walk through the old bazaar quarter brings you to the Sheki Caravanserai (17th century), its stone facade punctuated by arched gateways and the upper-storey rooms that once housed merchants and their wares. The surviving workshop tradition of kelagayi silk printing can still be observed in the old craft quarter, where artisans use wooden blocks carved with traditional motifs to print patterns on stretched silk.