Durbe Dilyara-bikech: An Eighteenth-Century Mausoleum in Bakhchysarai
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Ukraine
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crimean Khanate
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Tomb
On this page7 sections
History
Durbe Dilyara-bikech is an eighteenth-century Islamic mausoleum in Bakhchysarai, Ukraine, beside the South Gate of the Khan’s Palace. Built in 1764 in the Crimean tradition of tent-type tombs, it stands over a burial traditionally identified as that of Dilyara-bikech, the beloved wife of Qırım Giray, khan of the Crimean Khanate, the Turkic-Muslim state that ruled Crimea until its annexation by the Russian Empire in 1783.
Dilyara-bikech and Qırım Giray
Dilyara-bikech’s historical identity remains poorly researched. One tradition describes her as a Christian woman from Georgia, while other accounts simply remember her as Qırım Giray’s beloved wife. The tombstone inside the mausoleum bears the date 1763, and the building’s construction is generally assigned to 1764. A later account also gives 1764 as the year of Dilyara’s death.
Stories about the tomb connect it closely with the surrounding palace landscape. According to legend, Dilyara requested burial in a place from which the Green Mosque could be seen. Qırım Giray is also traditionally said to have created the Fountain of Tears on the opposite slope near the mausoleum. The fountain originally stood beside the durbe before being moved to the fountain courtyard in 1783.
Descriptions and literary associations
The earliest known literary descriptions of the mausoleum were written by foreign visitors after the Russian annexation of the Crimean Khanate. Elizabeth Craven described it in 1786, Peter Simon Pallas in 1793, and Pavel Sumarokov in 1800. Their descriptions presented it as the tomb of Qırım Giray’s beloved Christian wife and variously identified her as Georgian.
During the nineteenth century, the mausoleum became connected with the fictional Maria Potocka through Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Fountain of Bakhchysarai. Adam Mickiewicz later wrote The Tomb of Potocka in relation to the same legend. Residents and guides at the Khan’s Palace continued to promote the identification through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while Crimean Tatar writers developed their own interpretations of the story. The monument was also depicted in Carlo Bossoli’s painting Bakhchysarai.
Research and heritage status
In 1927, Usein Bodaninsky and Boris Zasypkin examined the mausoleum. Bodaninsky called it the “swan song” of the development of Crimea’s tent-type durbes, linking its form to the end of a building tradition after Qırım Giray’s reign, when the Crimean Khanate entered political and economic decline. Zasypkin understood its design as a combination of Eastern traditions and Western influences.
Durbe Dilyara-bikech forms part of the Bakhchysarai Historical and Cultural Reserve. Since 2020, Ukraine has listed it as a monument of architecture of national significance under the designation “Tomb, Durbe Dilyara-Bikech,” with State Register number 010077/9. It is also registered as a federal cultural-heritage object under the Russian heritage register.
Remains
The mausoleum stands within a large cemetery in the southeastern corner of the Khan’s Palace grounds, beside the palace’s South Gate. It occupies the distant corner of the palace garden terraces. The building is a tent-type durbe, meaning a mausoleum with a tent-like upper profile, and is also classified as a rotunda-type durbe, a centrally planned tomb based on a circular or polygonal form.
Plan and limestone walls
Its principal plan is an octagon with an entrance on the west side. A plinth forms the lower part of the structure, while the walls are built of cut limestone. Above them, an attic supports an octagonal drum rotated 45 degrees from the plan below. Each face of the drum has pilasters and small decorative arches. Three arches appear on each façade face, creating a double horizontal arcade. The lower arches have Baroque forms, while the central arch in the lower tier of each face serves as a window opening fitted with iron grilles characteristic of Tatar monuments.
When Bodaninsky and Zasypkin surveyed the building in 1927, the window openings were blocked with stones. A marble slab formerly stood above the entrance. Its inscription requested the recitation of the Fatiha, the opening surah of the Quran, for the soul of the deceased and forgiven Dilyara-bikech.
Dome and interior decoration
A hemispherical dome covers the mausoleum. It was made from square fired bricks measuring approximately 0.28 by 0.28 by 0.03 metres, an unusual choice for a stone durbe. The dome originally had a lead covering, which was later replaced with cement. The lead covering was restored after the 2007 restoration.
Above the crown of the dome is a gilded wrought-iron crescent, or alem, a finial placed on top of a dome or minaret. The crescent is mounted on spheres. Inside, the walls and dome were plastered and decorated with simple painted designs, with traces of painting also found on the exterior façade. The burial associated with Dilyara-bikech remains the principal relic identified with the monument.
