The palace at Bakhchisaray was the residence of the khans of Crimea and is the principal surviving monument of their court. Laid out as a series of courtyards, gardens and low pavilions rather than as a single block, it follows the aesthetic of the Islamic garden palace: shaded galleries, carved and painted ceilings, coloured glass, fountains and running water as the organising principle of comfort and prestige. The complex includes a mosque, a harem quarter, audience rooms and burial enclosures for the ruling family. Its best-known feature is the Fountain of Tears, whose slow drip has carried a literary reputation far beyond Crimea. The episode reads the palace as evidence of a Turkic and Islamic culture at the northern edge of the Black Sea, filming the decorative detail closely while keeping the sense of a place designed around water, shade and enclosure.
