Day 21 13 May Sheki Palace, Kish Village, and Ladas

Photo above - 1st century Albanian Church in Kish village

Sheki and the king's palace

Early morning, I went for a walk around the local streets near the hotel. This feels like a very working class area, plenty of factory buildings, some falling into decay. And all the vehicles were quite old, and mostly Ladas!

Sheki is the oldest city in Azerbaijan, established 2750 years ago. The first building we went to visit was Sheki Palace, built in 1762, by the grandson of one of the kings of Sheki at the time. It was not built for accommodation, rather it was an office and administration building, and used to host meetings with the king.

It is Intricately decorated inside and out, and the windows are made of hundreds of individual pieces of wood and coloured glass, using a local technique which utilised interlocking pieces of wood rather than glue or screws. The palace has six rooms over two floors, with no furniture, just decorated walls, and ceilings. The stain glass windows let loads of light in on the inside, although from the outside they do not even look like windows. In the grounds, there is a small old Albanian church, which is now a museum.

18th Century Inn

Next just down the road we visited an 18th century caravanasarai. These were wayside inns to provide overnight accommodation for traders working the silk road. Typically, there was room for the traders animals as well. This particular one is now a hotel and restaurant.

Kish village

Next we headed for the village of Kish, a small village up in the hills above Sheki. We had to go up to the village in a couple of road cars, as the streets are cobbled, very thin, and bordered by high walls, and our bus would have been too big. The Albanian church here is in a lovely location, with the mountains in the background. It was built in the 1st Century AD. Inside it has some artefacts found locally like jewellery, knives, pottery etc

A ride in a Lada

Next we went for a cup of tea in a local cafe, then I pusuaded the manager of the cafe to give me a lift back down the hill from the village in her Lada! It was really a surprisingly smooth ride over the cobbles, although obviously it is very small inside. She bought it as an antique for 4000 USD 22 years ago, and has done it up externally but kept everything internal pretty much the same.

Finally, on our way back to Sheki, we stopped at a local workshop to see how the traditional 'Kelagai' headscarves are hand printed.

Back at Sheki, we stopped at a cafe for some lunch, then walked back to the hotel to chill out for the rest of the afternoon. Tomorrow we will be crossing the border into Georgia.