Ширваншахлар сарайы: Бакудың тарихи ескерткіштерінің інжуі

The Palace of the Shirvanshahs (, کاخ شروان‌شاهان) is a 15th century palace built by the Shirvanshahs and described by UNESCO as "one of the pearls of Azerbaijan's architecture". It is located in the Inner City of Baku, Azerbaijan and, together with the Maiden Tower, forms an ensemble of historic monuments inscribed under the UNESCO World Heritage List of Historical Monuments. The complex contains the main building of the palace, Divanhane, the burial vaults, the shah's mosque with a minaret, Seyid Yahya Bakuvi's mausoleum (the so called "mausoleum of the dervish"), south of the palace, a portal in the east, Murad's gate, a reservoir and the remnants of a bath house. Earlier, there was an ancient mosque, next to the mausoleum. There are still ruins of the bath to the west of the tomb. In the past, the palace was surrounded by a wall with towers and, thus, served as the inner stronghold of the Baku fortress. Despite the fact that at the present time no traces of this wall have survived on the surface, as late as the 1920s, the remains of apparently the foundations of the tower and the part of the wall connected with it could be distinguished in the north eastern side of the palace. There are no inscriptions that survived on the palace itself. Therefore, the time of its construction is determined by the dates in the inscriptions on the architectural monuments, which refer to the complex of the palace. Such two inscriptions were completely preserved only on the tomb and minaret of the Shah's mosque. There is the name of the ruler who ordered to establish these buildings in both inscriptions is the – Shirvan Khalil As time of construction – was marked on the tomb, 845 on the minaret of the Shah's mosque. The complex used to occupy more area. There were rooms for court servants and services. In 1964, the palace complex was declared a museum preserve and taken under the protection of the state. In 2000, this ensemble, along with the fortified walls of the historic part of the city and the Maiden Tower, was named a World Heritage Site. The palace is depicted on the obverse of the Azerbaijani 10,000 manat banknote of 1994–2006 and of the 10 new manat banknote issued since 2006.

In the 15th century the Shirvanshah dynasty, under Ibrahim I of Shirvan, transferred his capital from Shemakha to Baku following a devastating earthquake. He committed himself to the construction of the "palace". Due to the literary works, there were Turkish pashas living in the palace at that time. The East Gate is a witness of this. Since the 17th century, the palace was empty, and there were not any government officials. The abbot of the monastery and the representative of the Isfahan mission Capuchin Pater Raphael du Mans in his essay in 1660 described Shirvanshah Palace in Baku fortress and gave information about its desolation and destruction. In 1723, Baku was besieged by the troops of Peter I, and the city was bombed. In this regard, the south eastern facades of the palace suffered much. The palace was transferred to the Russian military department in the middle of the 19th century. The Russian military department made a partial renovation of the palace. At the same time, the significant restructuring was carried out, which adapted the palace facilities to warehouses for military equipment. Repairs carried out by the military department, along with the restoration of the destroyed parts, and led to the destruction of a number of parts required for the restoration of the palace. During this period, the Eastern Orthodox Church in Baku sought the demolition of the palace to build a Baku cathedral in its place. However, this petition was rejected by the tsarist authorities only because the premises of the palace were used for large warehouses. The palace ensemble is now protected by fortress walls erected in the first half of the 19th century. During existence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918–1920), a number of measures were taken to study and fix architectural monuments. Thus, at the end of 1918, the dimensional drawings of the Shirvanshahs Palace were made by the Ishmael Bek Nabi oglu, the architectural engineer. At the beginning of 1920, several cycles of lectures on the fate of the palace were read in the "Society for the Study of the Muslim East" by Ismail bek Nabi oglu. The periodical press indicated that the report was illustrated by various photographs and drawings of the palace. After the reports and debates, the presidium of the society was elected, which included chairman Professor Zimin, Comrade chairman I Belyaev, secretary teacher Seidov and Kazioni Subkhanverdikhanov. The meeting instructed the presidium to organize an excursion to the palace in the near future. In 1937–1938 under the guidance of archaeologist Vadim Leviatov, archaeological excavations were carried out in the palace and a large number of artifacts dating from the 12th–15th centuries were found. The archaeological excavations conducted by Leviatov in 1945 on the territory of the palace ensemble, deep beneath the foundations of the surviving buildings, revealed the remains of a once densely populated residential quarter. Numerous fragments of ceramic products and coins date it to the 8th–9th centuries. For some time, the Azerbaijan People's Museum and the Museum of the History of Religion were located in the palace building. In 1960, the palace was turned into an architectural reserve, which in 1964 was transformed into the State Historical and Architectural Museum Reserve "Complex of the Shirvanshahs Palace". In 1992, new restoration works began. The author of the restoration project of the palace complex was Niyazi Rzayev. Restoration began from the throne room. In 2000, at the 24th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, the historical part of the city of Baku, Icheri Sheher, along with the palace, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site from Azerbaijan. In 2017, the Maiden Tower and the Palace of the Shirvanshahs were awarded with the Certificate of Excellence.

The building of the palace did not arise at once. The building of the complex was started in 1411 by Shirvanshah Sheykh Ibrahim I. The two storey building of the palace numbers about 50 dimensions and outlines of the constructions connected with three narrow winding staircases. The big lancet portal directly leads from the courtyard to the second floor, into a high octahedral lodging covered with a cupola. A small, octagonal vestibule behind it connects it with the rest of the lodgings in the palace. The earliest building (approximately the end of the fourteenth century) is the central part (octagonal hall of the second floor). The part adjoining the western facade was added a little later. The western, northern and a small part of the eastern facades form an incomplete rectangle. The rest of the eastern facade and the entire southern facade are formed by two triangular lanterns and a broken line between them, enclosing four right angles.

A small aperture, located on the north side of the palace garden, leads to the closed courtyard Divan khana, which is framed on three sides by a pointed arcade. In the composition center Divan khana there is an octagonal rotunda pavilion. The hall of this rotunda is surrounded by an open arcade of the same warrant. The elliptical cover with a slightly pointed top is protected from the outside by a faceted stone dome. The western facade of the rotunda is decorated with arabesques which are stylized with a portal, the channeled half cupola of the lancet conch is supported by a system of finely modeled stalactites (mucarnases). Overhead planes are covered with ornament. The portal leads to the canopy connecting the hall with the service rooms located one above the other. There are several versions of the appointment of Divan khana.

In the old days, a mosque was added to the mausoleum of Seyyid Yahya Bakuvi, which was called the "old" mosque. It is known as the "Kei Kubad Mosque". This mosque was built at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century after the destruction of the older building on which it was built. The mosque was covered with a dome, which was supported by four stone columns that stood inside the mosque. The clutches of the mosque were tied up with the laying of the mausoleum. In 1918, the "old" mosque burned down during a fire. The image of this mosque and its brief description was given in the article of Andrei Pavlinov, who visited Baku and saw the mosque in 1888, published in the third issue of the journal "Materials on the Archeology of the Caucasus" (Moscow, 1893) Historian Abbasgulu Bakikhanov wrote that Bakuvi taught and prayed in the mosque: "The cell where he prayed, the school where he worked and his grave are there, in the mosque". Keygubad Shirvanshah ruled from 1317 to 1343 and was Sheikh Ibrahim's grandfather. In the 1920s, when E. A Pakhomov surveyed the mausoleum and ruins of the old mosque, it was discovered that the pedestal on which the base of one of the mosque columns stood, covers a narrow trench made in the ground and plastered into the crypt of the mausoleum. In this trench, there were several stone tombstones. When examining the crypt, it was found that there were scattered bones to twenty human skeletons. The bones were folded without observing any rules. This is due to the fact that at the place where the mausoleum stood and around it, there was once a cemetery. And during the construction of the mosque and digging foundation pits under the foundations, a number of burials were broken. Bones from the broken graves were collected and stacked in the mausoleum, and gravestones – in the trench. These tombstones are not preserved. Currently, on the site where the mosque once stood, there are two columns that once stood inside the mosque, as well as part of the wall with the roof. Mihrab mosque is located at the southern end of the hall. Above the one woman women's chapel there is also a domed room. It is inferior in size to the dome of the hall and repeats its outlines. The inscription tells about the construction of the minaret, but not the mosque that was built at an earlier time. This is confirmed by the lack of a decorated rich portal and artistic inscriptions on it. The construction of this portal completed the formation of the ensemble. Judging by the inscription on the portal niche, the portal was built during the years of occupation of Baku by Ottoman troops at the behest of a noble Bakrada of the Rajab Baba in 994 AH (1585/86) by architect Amir Shah of Vaillankoukh (suburb of Tabriz). Compared with the Divan khana portals and the Shirvanshahs burial vault, the structure and forms of the portal are somewhat simplified. It has a less rich and elegant decor. The upper part of the portal is decorated with a building inscription in Arabic.

Not far from the bathhouse is located the ovdan – a reservoir which was one of the largest in the Fortress of the Ovdans. This ovdan supplied drinking water not only to the palace, but also to the entire surrounding area. This assumption is confirmed by the nearby small, built in the 14th century Chin Mosque, which is believed to have served the residents of the nearby area. Ovdan supplied water to the palace bathhouse. Description of the palace is found in the novel of Kurban Said "Ali and Nino."

The architecture of the palace several times fell into the footage of Leonid Gaidai's film The Diamond Arm (1969), which was also filmed in the "old city" of Baku.