Tajbeg Palace

Tajbeg Palace
قصر تاج بيگ - د تاج بېګ ماڼۍ
Tajbeg Palace in 1987
Interactive map of the Tajbeg Palace area
General information
TypePalace
Architectural styleNeoclassical
LocationKabul, Afghanistan
Renovated2021[1]
Technical details
Floor count3

Tajbeg Palace (Pashto: د تاج بېګ ماڼۍ; Dari: قصر تاج بيگ; Palace of the Large Crown), also inaccurately called the Queen's Palace, is one of the palaces in the popular Darulaman area of Kabul, Afghanistan.[2] The stately mansion is located about 16 km (9.9 mi) southwest from the city's center.[3] It sits on top of a knoll among foothills where the Afghan royal family of the day, known as the Mohammadzai dynasty, once hunted and picnicked.

Originally built in the 1920s to house the then royal family, Tajbeg Palace is one of the most impressive landmarks of Darulaman, a district created during the era of Amanullah Khan by a team of European architects in an attempt to modernize Afghanistan. The palace once served as the residence of General Secretary Hafizullah Amin. It was damaged during the civil war in the 1990s but recently renovated.[1]

History

Not far from Tapa-e Taj Beg (hill of Taj Beg), a palace for the Queen of the Timurids is said to have been found a long time ago. Terraced garden designs were preferred by Timurids and Mughals, and today some ruins remain. The Timurids and their successors, the Mughals, have kinship relations with the Pashtun tribes of Durrani and later Yusufzai. The daughter-in-law of Ahmad Shah Durrani (the wife of Timur Shah Durrani) was the daughter of Alamgir II.

According to some historians, the palace seems to have been renovated by Zaman Shah Durrani in 1795 (1210 AH), which was subsequently destroyed in military conflicts, and the ruins from ancient times remain. Some members of the International Security Assistance Force have documented ruins of the former castle.[4]

The current palace was constructed in the 1920s to house the Afghan royal family. The Swedish memoir writer Aurora Nilsson (also known as Rora Asim Khan), who lived in Afghanistan with her Afghan husband in 1926–27, describes in her memoirs how she was invited to the palace by Queen Soraya to describe Western lifestyle and customs to the Queen and the King's mother.[5]

On December 27, 1979, the Soviet Union launched its intervention in Afghanistan. That evening, the Soviet military launched Operation Storm-333, in which some 700 troops, including 54 KGB spetsnaz special forces troops from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, stormed the Palace and killed PDPA general secretary Hafizullah Amin, who had resided there since December 20.[6]

During the Soviet–Afghan War it served as the headquarters of the Soviet 40th Army. The palace was severely damaged in the years after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, when different Afghan mujahideen factions fought for control of Kabul after the fall of Mohammad Najibullah's government in 1992.

The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, in conjunction with the German government, drafted plans for renovating the palace for official use, requiring funds from private donations from wealthy Afghans. These plans were on indefinite hold as the Afghan government sought to establish peace and stability.[7] A similar plan was approved for the nearby Darul Aman Palace which was completely renovated and opened to the public on Afghan Independence Day, August 2019.[2] In 2021, the palace had been completely rebuilt.[1][8]

  • Condition of the palace in 2007
  • Bird's eye view of the palace in 2012
  • The ruined palace
  • The ruined palace
  • Photograph of the palace's west side during the Soviet assault on 27 December 1979
  • The palace one day after the assault

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "قصر تاج‌بیگ پس از بازسازی (Tajbeg Palace after reconstruction)". Voice of America. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
  2. ^ a b "Renovation of Darul Aman Palace Almost Complete". Ariana News. July 8, 2019. Retrieved 2026-01-12.
  3. ^ Ghani, Mariam & Ashraf (8 September 2012). "Palace of Abandoned Dreams". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  4. ^ http://afghanistanmylasttour.com/tag/tajbeg-palace/ Archived 2015-01-09 at the Wayback Machine 14th century Mongol ruins, the historical Taj Beg Palace
  5. ^ Rora Asim Khan (Aurora Nilsson): Anders Forsberg and Peter Hjukström: Flykten från harem, Nykopia, Stockholm 1998. ISBN 91-86936-01-8.
  6. ^ Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan by Timothy Nunan
  7. ^ "Everywhere: Places: Darul Aman Palace". everywheremag.com. Archived from the original on 21 December 2009. Retrieved 10 August 2015.
  8. ^ "کاخ تاج بیگ؛ روایتی از زندگی یک ملکه". TOLOnews. August 1, 2020. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21. Retrieved 2021-02-06.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tajbeg Palace.

34°27′17.38″N 69°6′48.04″E / 34.4548278°N 69.1133444°E / 34.4548278; 69.1133444

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.