Palace of Bukhara Emir in Zheleznovodsk

One of the most beautiful Zheleznovodsk palaces was built by the Emir of Bukhara at the foot of the Zheleznaya mountain at the resort park at the beginning of the 20 century. Over time it became one of the landmarks of this quiet and cozy town.

Since 1868 the Khanate of Bukhara was under the protectorate of the Russian Empire, however, the Emirs of Bukhara ruled over the country as absolute monarchs. The ninth Emir of Bukhara Said Abd al-Ahad Khan was educated together with the future Russian emperor Alexander III in Petersburg, so all his rule passed in the closest collaboration with the Russian emperor.

The Emir of Bukhara often visited Petersburg where he had his own house on the Kamennoostrovsky Prospect (Stone Island Avenue). Every summer he spent either in Crimea, where he had a luxurious palace in Yalta, or took the waters. The Emir had a kidney disease, so he had to often come for treatment in the Mineralnye Vody. Most often he stayed at the dacha of the baroness von Klugenau in Zheleznovodsk and then decided to build his own palace near it.

The palace of the Emir of Bukhara was designed by the local architect Vladimir Semenov. Its exterior has peculiar Moorish motives and rich majolica finishing. The minaret tower is near the eastern dome.

But the Emir of Bukhara Abd al-Ahad Khan had no time to live in the palace, as he died of kidney disease in 1910. His son Said Alim-Khan, who was a successor to the Bukhara throne, finished the palace in 1911, but he didn’t like to go there and gave it to the Empress Maria Fedorovna at the 300th anniversary of the Romanov Dynasty in 1913 and she decided to turn it into a sanatorium.

During the World War I the palace was occupied by a military hospital, and in the Soviet times – by the Thalmann sanatorium. Now the palace of the Emir of Bukhara is a sanatorium building and there remained no palace interiors excepting a fireplace.