Jipek-Joli Hotel

The "Jipek Joli" hotel is a comfortable one of deluxe class with all modern conveniences that will suit people, with the most exacting tastes. It is attached to the museum.

The hotel is two-stored with fifteen rooms for guests. The rooms are for two or three persons. They are of luxurious class and stylized in imitation of older Karakalpak premises, which will be to the liking of those who are fond of exotics. The originality of the hotel is that it is decorated in special Karakalpak style.

The fifteen comfortable rooms are for 20-30 persons. Seven of them are of class deluxe. Each of them has a bathroom with hot and cold water taps, a toilet room, a TV-set and a Winter-summer conditioner.
All the beds are wooden they are handmade and varnished to retain the natural color. On the windows are straw blinds which protect the rooms the hot sun’s rays. The curtains are made of shai (silk cloth of special ornament), the bed-covers are embroidered by hand. So the beds and the carpets make the rooms look picturesque and exotic.
In the morning the guests are served free breakfast. Attached to the hotel there is a national cafe where guests can try various dishes, both national Karakalpak and European ones.

In the hotel the guests have the opportunity to make use of computer, internet and web-camera.

The guests can be rendered any consultation on the ecotourism about Karakalpakstan.

Laundry services are also at their disposal.

The guests may have breakfast in their rooms or in the cafe "Jipek Joli" in the open air in the cabins made of straw or in the cabins made of clay, like in an olden Karakalpak house.
A delicious breakfast and Karakalpak exotics will make your morning more bright and cheerful. The cafe may serve the guests lunch (dinner) and supper at their will.

As we have already mentioned there are three rooms of class de luxe (each room for two persons) and two rooms of ordinary class (one room is for two persons and the other is for three persons).

Cafe "Jipek Joli"

In the yard of the hotel there is a sample of an ancient Karakalpak aul (Karakalpak village). In fact, it is an improvised cosy nook of rural life, a peculiar world of oriental exotics with a yurta (an ancient dwelling of Karakalpaks, an "arba" (a cart) – eternal companion of nomads and other things of nomad’s life. The other name of yurta is "Kara ui", meaning a black house.
By the way it is the name of black caps, which men used to wear, that became the basis of the ethnonym "Karakalpak (black cap)", thus becoming the name of the whole people.
Karakalpaks have a saying "Konak Kudaidan bir jas kishi" (The guest is one year younger than the God). By this saying they express their respect and honor the guest, who is usually given the most honorable place in the house.
Now a few words about yurta, which was an integral part nomads’ mode of life!
Any yurta consists of three parts: kerege, uyik and shanarak.
Karakalpak yurtas are constructed of 6-8-12 segments.
Legends say that the first to invent and build such a dwelling was a Muslim prophet Ibrahim Khalil. It was far in the North – on the plateau Usturt.
While constructing yurtas workmen make doors and frameworks separately. In the past, the wooden framework was made of janeuit, a tree with very hard wood. Now it is made of tal (a specimen of a willow).
The doors of a yurta are fixed in such a way that on entering it you willy-nilly make a bow. So making a bow you render its dwellers your respect.
Inside the yurta each dweller had its own place: men sat to the right of the entrance, and women – to the left.
Hence the location of a yurta in the aul had its own meaning. If a yurta was on the right it meant there was a man ready to marry there. If a yurta was on the left, everybody knew there was a girl of marriageable age.
The most honorable guests were placed in the center of the yurta.
In any yurta you are sure to see an ornamentally forged chest heaped with "korpe and korpeshe" (cotton quilts, big and small), a "kumgan" (a kettle with a long nose, usually used for washing hands), a "shomish" (a scoop), a "tabak" (a flat plate), "kasik" (a wooden spoon), "suwkabak" (a pail made of dried gourd), "samar" (a big wooden dish).

This cafe is part of the museum exposition. It is situated in the center of the improvised "Karakalpak aul". The cafe will hospitably open its doors to you at any time of the year. On the menu are national, European and vegetarian dishes. Whenever you come you will be attracted by the odor of hot flat cakes just from the tandir, called "tandir-nan" or "patir" (thin pastry cakes) or "zagara" (small rye cakes) or "gulshe nan" (kind of thin cake).
Here you can also be served fried national pieces of dough, like "katlama", "sozban", "shilpek", "bauirsak" (small fried diamond –shaped pieces of dough) and, of course, traditional Karakalpak tea. In summer it is green, in winter it is black tea with milk. Here you can try some dairy national products, like "irimshik" (kind of soft cottage cheese), "airan", "suzbe", "torak", "kurt", "kumiss" (a drink made from horses milk), "shubat" (a drink made from camel’s milk).