KHIVA: A CONSERVED HERITAGE WITHIN THE SANDS - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 104

FIGURE 6 Kunya Ark and Ak Sheikh Baba Bastion (commons.wikimedia.org, Photo by
upyernoz / CC-BY 2.0).
Retrieved November 15, 2013 from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kukhna_
ark,_khiva_(472547).jpg
The first palace of Khiva khans, dated back to the 17th century, is lo-
cated inside this oldest city center. Its called as “old” after Tash Hauli
Palace was built in the 19th century. The castle is separated from the city
with its high walls, connecting to Ichan kala walls with Ata Darvaza. It
includes harem, the working place of khans, throne room, reception room
( arz hauli ), arsenal, mint, summer mosque and meeting hall (Khiva, 1993).
It is exciting to trace the reflections of rural and urban architecture
traditions to royal architecture in Khiva. In palace architecture, there are
many rectangular courtyards used for different purposes. The palace court-
yard, where administration tasks and celebration ceremonies take place,
is called kurinishhana , mehmonhana or ishrathauli . The most important
part in this division is the throne room with its magnificent decorations,
especially in its iwan. Khan would accept the people in the open iwan in
summer, and in the yurt (tent) built on top of the brick platform (Fig. 7) in
winter (Mankovskaya, 1982).
This is the area where the cülus ceremony takes place, in which the
khan is given his sword and crown turban (Esin, 1997). The court building
where state affairs are conducted is a called arz-hauli , which carries simi-
lar architectural characteristics as the kurinishana. Ichan-hauli or harem ,
located at the north, is a long courtyard where the sultans wives reside.