Palace of the Shirvanshahs, Baku

Palace of the Shirvanshahs tickets and prices

Under the Icherisheher Reserve's official price list, foreign adults pay 24 AZN and foreign children aged 5–17 pay 12 AZN. Azerbaijani citizens pay 7 AZN, with 3 AZN for students and 2 AZN for children. The ticket is called “Shirvanshahs Palace & Treasure” and covers the whole complex.

Buy it at the ticket desk by the entrance. There is no need to book: the only queues come when tour groups arrive. Resellers online charge more than the desk, so an online voucher only makes sense if it bundles a guide.

Many blogs still quote 15 AZN or less — those figures are out of date. Visiting the Maiden Tower too? It is 19 AZN for foreign adults, so budget 43 AZN for both.

Opening hours and the best time to go

The palace is open every day from 10:00 to 19:00 with no weekly closing day, according to the Reserve's official site. Last entry is not published, so arrive by 18:00 to see all three courtyards without rushing.

Go at opening time if you can. The courtyards are empty, the stone is still cool and the Shah mosque sits in soft shade. Tour groups arrive from late morning, and in July and August the open terraces get very hot. Some guides still say it closes at 18:00 — the official hours are longer.

How long does it take?

Plan on 1 to 1.5 hours for the palace, the Divankhana, the mausoleums, the mosque and the bathhouse in the lower courtyard. A fast walk-through takes 30–40 minutes, but you will miss the carving, which is the whole point.

With a guide, or if you photograph every portal, give it up to two hours. Combine it with the Maiden Tower, 5–7 minutes downhill, and you have a solid half-day in the Old City.

What to see inside

• The palace building — two storeys that once held 52 rooms. Upstairs is the domed octagonal hall, probably used for receptions, plus the museum display.
• The Divankhana — a small arcaded courtyard around an octagonal rotunda. Its portal, carved with arabesques and muqarnas, is the finest stonework in the complex.
• The royal mausoleum (1435/36) — its portal inscription says Khalilullah built it for his mother and his son.
• The Shah (Palace) mosque and its 1441/42 minaret — the postcard silhouette.
• The mausoleum of Seyid Yahya Bakuvi, the court scholar, known as the “dervish's mausoleum”: an octagon with a pyramid roof and star-patterned stone window grilles.
• The middle courtyard, paved with inscribed slabs from the Bayil castle, which lay under the Caspian in Baku Bay for centuries.
• The bathhouse and the ovdan — a sunken palace bath and the underground cistern that supplied it.
• Murad's Gate, the Eastern Portal, with its Arabic inscription.

Is the Palace of the Shirvanshahs worth visiting?

Yes, if architecture and medieval history appeal to you. With the Maiden Tower it is the Old City's headline sight, and there is no other 15th-century ensemble of this quality in Baku. The carved portals of the Divankhana and the mausoleum are worth the climb.

Be realistic, though: there are no lavish interiors, the rooms are modest and 24 AZN is steep by local standards. If museums are not your thing, the domes and minaret are easy to see while wandering the Old City. Children usually enjoy the courtyards and the underground cistern more than the display rooms.

A short history

The Shirvanshahs ruled Shirvan, in what is now Azerbaijan. In the 15th century they moved their capital from Shamakhi to Baku, and under Khalilullah I this ensemble rose on the hilltop inside the walls, built of local golden limestone in the Shirvan-Absheron style.

After the Safavids took Baku in 1501 the palace declined. Ottoman rule added Murad's Gate in 1585/86; in the 19th century the Russian army used the buildings as warehouses and changed walls and windows. Major restoration came in the 1930s and again from the 1990s. Historians still debate what some buildings were for — the Divankhana may have been a court, a reception hall or a memorial.

Guided tour or on your own?

The site is easy to do alone: paths lead down through the three courtyards and the main buildings have signs. What you miss without a guide is the story — the inscriptions, the arguments over the Divankhana, the Bayil stones — and without it most people are out in half an hour.

Old City walking tours almost always include the palace, the Maiden Tower and the caravanserais, which suits a first day in Baku.

Shirvanshahs Palace vs Maiden Tower vs Underground Bath

Prices and hours from the Icherisheher Reserve's official site; time needed is YesGo's estimate. If you pick just one, pick the palace — it gives the most for one ticket.

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Every historic place in Baku rated by YesGo. Tap a column heading to sort.

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How to do it right

• Start at the palace at 10:00 and walk down to the Maiden Tower afterwards — it is all downhill.
• The best shot of the Shah mosque dome and minaret is from the lower courtyard, looking up, in the morning.
• Look down in the middle courtyard: the Bayil slabs are covered in carved script and figures that spent centuries underwater.
• Skip resold e-vouchers without a guide — the desk is no dearer and the queue is short.
• In summer, go at opening or in the last hour — the courtyards have almost no shade.
• Follow the palace with the Carpet Museum on the Boulevard: the same patterns, in wool.

Questions