Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Sheki Khan Sarayi (Sheki Khan Palace)

If Khan saw me in his Palace he would say “How dare you strange woman, step into my mansion. Guard, take her.” If a museum keeper saw us taking photos (it is prohibited to take photos in the museum) she would say “Stop breaking the rules or I will call the security.” As a matter of fact I always imagine impression of Khans, Princes, Kings if they saw all those people visiting their Palaces, walking through their rooms where once nobody was allowed to enter or see….I guess they would feel very offended and commit suicide (after punishing all the visitors of course).

This is the view of one of the rooms of Khan Sarayi. Of course all rooms are ornamented and every ornament has a meaning behind it, every flower, leave, animal, any drawing, illustration is describing something: some belief, thought, event, something that happened to Khan or his ancestors or historic event of Sheki. Although Azerbaijan is not a poor country the Palace still wasn’t restored totally as it used to be in Khan’s times unfortunately. For example Khan had carpets which ornament repeated the ornament drawn on the ceiling…Now the floors are naked… Is it possible that floors of Khans’ Palaces’ are naked and not covered with rich and thick carpets? Well maybe in XXI century….

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2 comments:

Sally said...

I'm glad you were able to sneak the pic. What is is about not being allowed to take photos in suchplaces? is it a power trip of some kind? I can understand if there are delicate works that can be flash damaged, but really....

Fénix - Bostonscapes said...

How beautiful. Imagine living in a place like that. I hope one day the carpets get restored. Don't think they'll ever allow people to walk on them, but it would be so nice for the visitors to be able to see them.