Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa: Bukhara’s Summer Palace
Visit Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa, the last emir’s summer palace near Bukhara: East-meets-West design, peacock gardens, tickets, hours and how to get there.
Four kilometres north of Bukhara’s mud-brick old town, past the ring road and a scatter of Soviet apartment blocks, the desert-brown palette of the city suddenly breaks into something unexpected: white plaster carved like lace, Venetian mirrors, Russian parquet, and a garden where peacocks drag their tails across the gravel. This is Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa, the summer palace of the last emir of Bukhara, and it is one of the strangest and most revealing buildings in Uzbekistan.
The name translates from Tajik as roughly “Star Like the Moon,” and the palace lives up to the romance of it. Built on the eve of the emirate’s collapse, it is where a medieval Islamic dynasty tried, quite literally, to import the modern European world one chandelier at a time. The result mixes East and West: Bukharan ganch carving and Uzbek tilework sitting a few metres from Russian stoves, Japanese porcelain, and rooms lifted straight from a St Petersburg drawing room.
We think it is one of Bukhara’s most underrated stops, precisely because it feels so different from everything else in town. Below we cover the palace’s short, dramatic history, what makes the architecture worth the trip, exactly what you’ll see inside the museum today, and the practical details on tickets, hours, and getting there (last checked: July 2026). If you’re still mapping out the wider city, start with our full Bukhara travel guide.
The Palace of the Last Emir
The man behind the palace is Said Alim Khan, who took the Bukharan throne in 1911 as a 31-year-old and became the last emir the city would ever have. Unusually for a Bukharan ruler, he had been educated in St Petersburg, and that exposure to imperial Russia shows in almost every design decision here. The current palace was built between roughly 1912 and 1918, replacing earlier summer residences on the same leafy, cooler site outside the walled city.
The name has a tender legend attached to it. The story goes that the emir dedicated the palace to a beloved wife named Sitora, who died young; her name (meaning “star”) was folded into the poetic “Star Like the Moon.” Whether or not the tale is literally true, it fits the mood of a place built for pleasure, not defence.
The palace also carries the weight of an ending. In 1920, the Red Army stormed Bukhara, the emirate fell, and Alim Khan fled south into Afghanistan. He never returned, dying in exile in Kabul in 1944. Standing in these over-the-top reception halls, it is hard not to feel the strangeness of it: this was the last flourish of a thousand-year-old order, finished only a couple of years before the whole system it was built for vanished. For the longer arc of how Bukhara fits into Central Asian history, our Silk Road history of Uzbekistan gives useful background.
East Meets West: The Architecture
What makes Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa special is the deliberate collision of two worlds. Alim Khan sent Bukharan master craftsmen to train in Russia, then brought them home to work alongside two Russian engineers, Margulis and Sakovitch. The brief was essentially: take everything traditional Bukharan artisans do best and marry it to European comfort and materials. The seams between the two styles are visible everywhere, and that is exactly the point.
The White Hall
The undisputed highlight is the White Hall (Oq Zal), the main reception room, created by the celebrated Bukharan master Usta Shirin Muradov. It is executed in ganch, a carved plaster technique, laid over walls set with mirror glass so that the white carving appears to float and multiply. Guides love to point out two details: that no single pattern in the room is ever repeated, and that a mirrored recess is angled so a design reflects back on itself dozens of times. Add Venetian and Japanese mirrors in gilded frames, and the effect is a dazzling, slightly dizzying hall of light. It is the sort of craftsmanship you also see, in an older register, in the tilework of the Po-i-Kalyan complex in the city centre.
The gardens, the pond, and those peacocks
Half the pleasure of Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa is outdoors. The grounds are laid out as shaded gardens with rose beds, mature trees, and a rectangular pond where, in the emir’s day, the story goes that women of the harem bathed while he watched from a nearby pavilion. Descendants of the palace’s peacocks still roam the gardens today, and visitor reports say mornings and late afternoons are when they’re most active near the pond, and the gardens are quietest then too.
The harem and outer courtyards
Beyond the main halls sits a separate harem building overlooking the pond, along with a tea pavilion, a small minaret, and guest quarters. The complex is arranged as a series of courtyards rather than one grand block, so wandering it feels less like touring a museum and more like drifting through a private estate that its owner walked out of a century ago and never came back to.
What You’ll See Inside the Museum
Since 1927 the palace has served as a state museum of decorative and applied arts, which is why the interiors are furnished rather than bare. Expect to move through a sequence of period rooms displaying the material culture of the late emirate and the region:
- Gold-embroidered Bukharan robes and ceremonial court costumes, a local speciality the city was famous for
- Suzani, the large hand-embroidered textiles that are one of Uzbekistan’s signature crafts
- Russian, Chinese, and Japanese porcelain, some of it diplomatic gifts, displayed in the emir’s own china rooms
- Palace furniture, carved doors, and the fittings of the reception halls themselves
It is a manageable collection rather than an exhausting one, and the building is at least as much the exhibit as anything in the cases. If crafts are your thing, the shopping and workshops back in Bukhara’s old trading domes make a natural pairing, and there’s plenty more on our list of the best things to do in Uzbekistan.
Planning Your Visit
Here are the essentials at a glance. The palace is covered on the national tourism portal's Sitorai Mohi-Hosa page, which doesn't publish a tariff, so the fee and hours below come from a visitor report updated in April 2026 (last checked: September 2026). Confirm on arrival.
| Detail | What to expect (last checked: September 2026) |
|---|---|
| Location | About 4 km north of Bukhara’s Lyabi-Hauz / old town |
| Opening hours | 9:00 to 18:00 in summer, 9:00 to 17:00 in winter; the Museum-Reserve lists no weekly day off (09:00–18:00, shorter 09:00–17:00 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday), though one 2026 visitor report says it closes on Wednesdays, so check |
| Entrance fee | 60,000 UZS (about $5) for foreigners on the Bukhara Museum-Reserve's official tariff |
| Getting there | Taxi (Yandex Go) ~30,000-50,000 UZS one way, 15 min; marshrutka #7 or #70 ~4,000 UZS |
| Time needed | 1 to 1.5 hours, including the gardens |
| Best time of day | Early morning or late afternoon for light, cooler air, and peacocks |
Getting there and back
The simplest option is a taxi ordered through the Yandex Go app, which most visitors use across Uzbekistan and which removes any need to haggle. From the old town it’s about 15 minutes and, as of July 2026, usually somewhere in the 30,000-50,000 UZS range one way; a hailed street taxi may be cheaper if you negotiate first. Budget travellers can take marshrutka #7 or #70, which drops you a short walk from the gate for a few thousand som. The site is flat and easy, and confident cyclists sometimes ride out in around 25 minutes. Have your driver wait, or simply order a return taxi from the palace gate. Fares, apps and intercity transport have a companion page of their own.
How much time, and combining it with other sights
Allow an hour to ninety minutes. The palace pairs naturally with a morning of central Bukhara sights, and many travellers hit it on the same day as the towering Ark of Bukhara, the city’s ancient fortress, for a neat contrast between the medieval seat of power and the emirate’s final, Europeanised swan song. Because the palace is out of the centre, it’s worth grouping with anything else on the northern edge of town rather than doubling back.
When to go
Bukhara bakes in summer, and the palace’s shaded gardens are a genuine relief in July and August, though midday is still hot and glary for photos. Spring and autumn are ideal, with roses in bloom and comfortable temperatures. If you’re still deciding when to travel, our seasonal planning page breaks the seasons down in more detail.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa worth visiting?
We think so, especially if you’ve already seen the blue-domed monuments and want something from the emirate’s last years instead. Allow an hour, with the gardens.
How much does it cost to enter?
Foreigners pay 60,000 UZS on the Bukhara State Museum-Reserve's official tariff in force since January 2025 (last checked: September 2026). Carry cash in som; card payment isn’t guaranteed.
What are the opening hours?
9:00 to 18:00 in summer and 9:00 to 17:00 in winter, per a visitor report updated in April 2026; that report says the usual day off is Wednesday, but the Museum-Reserve's own site lists no day off and shorter 09:00–17:00 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday (last checked: September 2026). Arrive by mid-afternoon to be safe.
Are there really peacocks?
Yes, peacocks still live in the palace gardens, though sightings aren’t guaranteed.
Where should I stay to visit easily?
Almost everyone bases themselves in or near Bukhara’s old town, around Lyabi-Hauz, which puts you a cheap taxi ride from the palace and walking distance from most other sights. See our overview of where to stay in Uzbekistan for neighbourhood and accommodation ideas across the country.
Sitorai Mokhi-Khosa is a fitting last chapter to any Bukhara itinerary: the moment a medieval emirate looked west, spent lavishly, and then ran out of time. Between the mirrored White Hall, the porcelain rooms, and the peacocks stalking the roses, it rewards an unhurried hour and a bit of imagination about the world that ended here. For authoritative background on hours and history, the write-up at Caravanistan is worth a look before you go.