A Silk Road caravan town in the Caucasus foothills
Sheki sits among forested hills on the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus and was an important stop on trade routes through the region. Its jewel is the 18th-century Palace of Sheki Khans, whose facades are covered in intricate shebeke, windows of coloured glass set in wooden lattices assembled without nails or glue. Travellers still sleep in the old Upper Caravanserai. The town is known for its silk, its piti, a mutton stew cooked in clay pots, and its layered, syrupy halva.