Sitorai Mohi Khosa Palace

The palace stands four kilometres north of Bukhara and was, a century ago, the emirs' country residence.

The first thing people notice is the microclimate: even on the hottest day the heat is barely felt. The site was chosen by an old method — butchered mutton was laid out on the intended ground and watched to see where it kept longest. That was where they built.

The foundations were laid under Emir Ahadkhan at the end of the nineteenth century. The main building was raised by his successor, Muzaffarkhan, for his young wife Sitora-bonu. The Bukharan masters who worked on it had trained in Russia, so Eastern and Western methods are mixed in the architecture. The emir's wife died soon after, and the palace took its poetic name: Sitorai Mohi Khosa, the palace of the star like the moon. The last and largest phase was finished under Alimkhan, the final emir: the triumphal arch of the main gate, a conservatory, a reception room, a ceremonial terrace and several other structures.

The centrepiece inside is the throne room, the White Hall. Ganch carving on a mirrored ground was used here for the first time; the technique was devised by usta Shirin Muradov, whose monument stands on the grounds. The reception rooms carry painted ganch with one particularity: the pattern never repeats — visitors waiting hours for an audience had something to occupy the eye.

The summer room, the chaykhana, stands out for its coloured windows. In the banqueting hall the walls slid apart and were changed with the season, though only one set survives. A large collection of Chinese and Japanese vases is kept there; the emir is said to have had a Chinese bowl that changed colour if the food in it was poisoned, and he would not begin a meal without it.

The mirrors are a subject of their own: Venetian glass that does not distort, Japanese mirrors framed in so-called boiled glass, and a triple mirror that repeats a reflection forty times. Palace tradition held that a new concubine was led to the triple mirror, and however many reflections she saw, that was how many rivals she had.

Deep in the garden stands a guest house known as the pavilion of Princess Olga, though Nicholas II's sister never set foot in it. Inside it is richly painted: restoring the wall painting alone took more than four kilograms of gold leaf, and the house feels considerably larger inside than out.

The palace is now a museum: palace furniture and household objects, Chinese and Japanese porcelain, and a collection of nineteenth-century national dress worked in Bukharan gold embroidery.