So off we set after the four minarets place and onward to Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa the summer residence of the last Emir of Bukhara Said Alimkhan (1911 -1920)and quite a place it is to. Described as a charming and nauseating collection of dwellings and state rooms was built by the Russians in 1911 for the last Emir Alim Khan, as an inducement to get him out of the Ark fortress and safely ensconced in a strategic and cultural no-man’s-land on the edge of town.
The name of the palace means “stars meet the moon”.Firstly, the group of local architects headed by Usto Hodja Hafiz had built a magnificent object which combined local Bukhara and European traditions.
The main structure of this palace is granted to the throne hall. Under its arks the public meetings of the elite authorities used to be held.
By the entrance to the portal there are two marble lions made by nuratin masters.
Also the architects had created marble reservoirs in the shape of fictional dragon. So even in those days just because you had money did not mean you had style. The main building of the palace which includes several rooms and personal premises of emir had been constructed mainly under the supervision of Russian engineers and only “The White Hall” and its corridor built in 1912-1914, belong to the art style of Bukhara architects. These halls are the masterpieces of ornamental decoration. “The White Hall” had received its name from the shiny-white construction materials used during the creation) process to cover the walls and the ceiling.
By the end of the 19th century the ruler of Central Asia’s most fanatical bastion of Islam paid annual visits in his private train to the banquets and balls of St Petersburg’s Winter Palace or to his fashionable dacha on the Crimean coast, as his son read Dostoevsky and tried to reconcile a four-year military education in St Petersburg with the medieval theology taught in Bukharan madrassah.
I it sounds like he was as confused as this place,
it was not dreadful by any means but is slightly out of place.
it was not dreadful by any means but is slightly out of place.