Sheki Craft Workshops: Shebeke and Silk
Ask about carpet weaving in Sheki and you will get a puzzled look. That craft belongs to other Azerbaijani regions; Sheki’s real workshop tradition runs through glass, silk, sugar and copper instead.
Shebeke: glass without glue
The signature craft here is shebeke, stained-glass window screens built by hand-carving interlocking grooves into walnut and boxwood, then sliding in cut pieces of colored glass so the whole panel locks together through geometric tension alone, with zero nails, screws or glue anywhere in it. Master Tofiq Rasulov’s workshop inside the Nukha Fortress courtyard is the place to see this in person, and visitors can try fitting a puzzle-like test frame themselves rather than just watching from a rope line.
Kelaghayi: silk headscarves, wax-stamped
Sheki mulberry silk becomes kelaghayi, the traditional square headscarf recognized on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list since 2014, through a process of wax-resist woodblock printing: heavy carved stamps dipped in hot wax press paisley and geometric patterns onto raw silk before it goes into vats of pomegranate, madder or walnut-husk dye. The Sheki Silk Factory, the 19th-century industrial complex that earned the city its “Lyon of the Caucasus” nickname, is where this tradition is rooted, and it is a separate site from the Khan’s Palace, not part of it, whatever an older listing might claim.
Sheki halva, made in front of you
Watching a Sheki halva demonstration beats reading about the dish: liquid rice-flour batter poured through a copper funnel forms lace-thin rişdə sheets on a hot griddle, layered six to eight deep around spiced walnuts or hazelnuts, then drenched in saffron syrup fresh off the tray. Local pastry masters run this as an open, watchable process rather than a formal class.
Copper and pottery, worked in the open
Along Mirza Fatali Akhundov Street, coppersmiths still hammer traditional patterns into water jugs and other vessels in open-fronted workshops, with potters working nearby on the same street. Ask before photographing anyone at work, and expect a cash-only transaction if you want to buy directly.
Seeing these workshops without overplanning it
A day trip from Baku that includes the caravanserai and Khan’s Palace commonly folds in a stop at the shebeke workshop, and it is worth searching GetYourGuide directly for kelaghayi-focused options if silk printing interests you more than glasswork. The UNESCO heritage listing for kelaghayi and the national tourism board’s Sheki page both cover the background in more depth than fits here. Doing this as a group rather than solo, our group activities guide covers the same shebeke session at a communal pace. Carry small AZN notes for every workshop stop; none of them run card machines.