COURTROOM AND TRIBUNAL
On the right as you enter the Tash Khauli Palace, a corridor leads to the courtroom, or ishrat khauli. The black coach on display at the end of the corridor is a gift from Nicholas II to his eastern vassal, Khiva's last khan, Asfandiar Khan. He was suffering from a shameful illness and his doctor, who was supposed to be in charge of him, told him that the only way to cure himself was to eat virgins... He used to travel around town in this carriage, which the inhabitants had nicknamed "the black death". The courtroom is a square courtyard flanked to the south by a one-column iwan with decorations just as admirable as those of the harem, still the work of Abdullah Djinn, the genius who also decorated the Pakhlavan Makhmoud mausoleum.
Two places for yurts made it possible to receive guests in winter. A maze of corridors leads to the courtroom, or arz khauli. And for those who have not admired the majolica of the iwan in the harem or the reception hall, those in the arz khauli offer a breathtaking catch-up session. The court had two exits, one for the acquitted, the other for the convicted. The khan sometimes received guests in a yurt placed on a brick elevation in the middle of the courtyard. At the back of the courtyard, a small door leads to dark galleries where doors and columns recovered from several Khiva monuments are displayed in a jumble.