Palace "Tash-Khauli" (19th century)

Tash-Hauli stands in the eastern part of Ichan-Kala and was built in 1830–1838 on the orders of Allakuli Khan. Khorezm was trading well with its neighbours at the time, the treasury was full, and the khan spared nothing on the decoration — the palace came out a model of Khorezmian ambition.

It took eight years, which angered the khan: he had counted on two. Builders lost their heads over it, literally. Work began with the harem and the khan's own rooms; then the mehmonkhona for receiving delegations and guests went up on the east side, and the arzonkhona, the courtroom, on the west.

All the parts are linked by a maze of unlit corridors. The khan's rooms and the harem are cut off from the official half by a continuous passage. The largest and most richly finished room is the khan's own; four more were for his wives, of whom the Qur'an allows no more than four. A two-storey range runs around the courtyard for concubines and female relatives, and every harem room has its own separate entrance, unconnected to the others.

The finishing holds the attention: walls in blue-and-white majolica, ceilings painted in brown-red, openwork copper grilles at the windows. No ornament is repeated twice — the rule holds throughout the palace.

The guest section is a square courtyard with a round dais in the middle, where a yurt was pitched for the khan's guests. The rest is given over to rooms and iwans, all in the same blue and white.

The western part, where the khan sat in judgement, is twice the size of the mehmonkhona's reception area. The decoration of the arzonkhona, like that of the whole palace, was directed by the master Abdulla, known popularly as the Genius.