Tosh Hovli Palace: Khiva's Harem Courtyards

Allakuli Khan wanted his new palace built in two years. The story in Khiva is that the first architect told him it couldn't be done and was executed for saying so. Whether or not that's true, the building took most of the 1830s and 1840s and ended up with a warren of rooms around three courtyards, wrapped in the densest blue tilework in the city. How many rooms depends on who is counting: the figure usually quoted locally is around 160, while Uzbekistan's official tourism portal puts it above 260.

Tosh Hovli means "stone house", which is what a mud-brick city calls a building made to last. It's the most decorated interior in Khiva, and after the Kunya Ark citadel it's the place that tells you most about how the khans actually lived.

The three courtyards

The palace divides into three parts, each with its own yard and its own purpose. They're connected by twisting corridors, partly for privacy and partly because the site was cramped.

The harem is the part everyone photographs. A long courtyard with five ayvans, open-fronted verandahs, along one side: one for the khan and one for each of his four wives, with the rooms of concubines and servants behind. The walls are covered floor to ceiling in blue and white majolica, and the wooden columns supporting the ayvans are carved with different patterns at every level.

The reception court (ishrat hovli) was for reviews, ceremonies and entertaining. A raised platform in the middle held the khan's yurt; the round stone base is still there. This is where ambassadors were received and where musicians played.

The court of justice (arz hovli) is the smallest. The khan heard petitions and delivered judgments here, seated under an ayvan at one end. It's a plain space by comparison, which was probably the point.

Why it's shaped like this

Tosh Hovli looks chaotic on a plan, and there's a reason. Allakuli Khan built it inside an already crowded walled city, on a plot squeezed between existing buildings and the eastern wall. There was no room for a grand axis, so the architects strung the three courtyards together with bent corridors, which also kept the harem out of sight of anyone entering on official business.

The cramped site shaped the decoration too. With no long facades to work with, the money went into surfaces you see from close range: tile panels at eye level, carved wooden columns you can touch, painted ceilings low enough to read. Compared with Samarkand, where the effect is designed to hit you from 200 metres away, Khiva's palace works at arm's length.

It's also worth noticing what the building does about heat. The ayvans face north, into shade, and each courtyard is deep and narrow so that the walls shade the ground for most of the day. In August the difference between standing in a courtyard and standing in the street outside is immediate.

How to read the tilework

Khiva's tile style is distinct from Samarkand's and Bukhara's, and Tosh Hovli is the best place to see it. Three things to look for:

Two colours, not five. The palette is mostly white and several blues, with sparing green. There is very little of the gold, turquoise and deep purple range you see on Timurid buildings.
Flowers, not geometry. The panels are dominated by curling floral patterns, often built around a central medallion, rather than the interlacing star grids of girih work.
Signed panels. Some tiles carry the name of Abdullah Jin, the master craftsman who led the work. Ask a guide to point one out; they're easy to miss and they make the room feel less anonymous.

Above the tiles, look up at the carved ganch (plaster) and the painted wooden ceilings. Much of the palace's wood carving was done by the same workshops that made the columns in the Djuma Mosque, and the vocabulary of vines and rosettes is the same.

Who lived here

Allakuli Khan ruled Khiva from 1825 to 1842, a period when the khanate was at its most confident: trade with Russia was growing, the city had money, and it had not yet had its confrontation with the Tsar's army. He built or funded a madrasah, a caravanserai and a covered bazaar as well as this palace.

The harem arrangement is worth being clear about. The four ayvans for four wives reflect Islamic law; the rooms behind housed a larger household of concubines, children and servants, with its own hierarchy and its own economy. The signage inside is thin on this, and a guide adds a lot.

Practical details

Tosh Hovli is on the eastern side of Itchan Kala, about five minutes' walk from the Djuma Mosque and opposite the Allakuli Khan madrasah. Entry is covered by the combined Itchan Kala ticket, 250,000 som for two days (last checked: July 2026).

Time needed: 30 to 45 minutes.
Best time: late morning, when sunlight reaches down into the harem courtyard and lights the tiles. Early morning leaves it in shadow.
Watch out for: low doorways and uneven floors between courtyards.
Groups: the harem courtyard is small and fills quickly. If a coach party arrives, see the other two yards first and come back.

Pair it with the Kunya Ark citadel to compare a working fortress with a show palace, built about 150 years apart. Both are covered by the same ticket, and our Khiva travel guide sets out a route that takes in both without backtracking.

Itchan Kala as a whole has been on UNESCO's World Heritage list since 1990. Official accounts date the palace to 1830–1841, with the court of justice finished in 1837–1838.

Featured image: Bgag (CC0) via Wikimedia Commons.