MY ATTRACTIVE CITY

"The city of winds", "The Paris of the East", "The New Dubai"… This is how travellers have referred to the capital of Azerbaijan, splendid Baku, at different times…

It became "Paris" after the building boom at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, when it experienced the oil boom. It became the "New Dubai" at the beginning of the 21st century when another large-scale stage in construction started. More and more new buildings began to appear - modern office blocks, big shopping malls and high-rise blocks of flats… But at the same time it is continuing to skilfully combine a wide variety of architectural styles embracing Eastern and European traditions.

The glorious pages of history

It is not surprising that the attention of visitors throughout the world is riveted on Baku. It was precisely here that the first national theatre in the Muslim East raised its curtain, the first opera resounded and the first Azerbaijani library was opened…

Today Baku is a major cultural centre in Azerbaijan with numerous museums, libraries, theatres, a philharmonic society, an opera house and cinemas.

But, if we are whirled away back into distant times, we can see that Baku's history is rooted in the Palaeolithic Age when ancient man inhabited the Abseron peninsula.

The city came into being as a small fortified settlement on the shores of the ancient Caspian Sea. It was encircled by a mighty fortress wall. But by the beginning of the first millennium [AD] Baku had already developed into a busy port city.

The city took on ever varying shapes in different periods, but various archaeological finds testify to the fact that Baku began to come into being in antiquity. The Old City, "the inner city" or as it is still called "The Old City" or "The Baku Acropolis" is one of the sights most visited by tourists.

It is that very seaside fortress on the shores of the Caspian that numerous rulers fought over. Many mediaeval structures in the Old City have been built on the foundations of demolished ancient buildings, part of which have still not been identified.

What is known for certain is that people lived in the Old City back in the Bronze Age and in the 8th to 1lth centuries the fortress was completely populated. So, today the Old City is the most ancient residential quarter in Baku. In 1977, it was declared a historical and cultural conservation area and in the year 2000 it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage register.

This unique historical ensemble preserves several unparalleled ancient monuments simultaneously like the Shirvanshahs' Palace, the Maiden Tower, mosques and minarets, bath-houses [hamams] and caravanserais.

The Old City is special. The Baku of the 17th to 19th centuries did not stretch beyond the bounds of the ancient fortress. The palaces of the rulers and also the residential quarters were located there. The territory of the fortress was quite small, because from the earliest times the houses here were erected literally side by side. So, you will not see any luxuriant gardens and vineyards here, but then you imbibe the atmosphere of the real ancient times and can admire the little buildings with their small courtyards, separated by tiny narrow streets, cul-de-sacs and lanes…

It was not until the start of the 19th century that the city began to expand beyond the fortress walls. At that time, they had to demolish the outer fortress wall which was separated from the inner wall by a deep moat. Therefore the tourists who visit the Old City can only see one ancient fortress wall in which 25 towers and five gates are preserved.

It is impossible to convey the atmosphere of this place in words. In the Old City you find yourself in another world fenced in by the everlasting hustle and bustle of modern Baku. 

There is everything here - numerous souvenir stalls are scattered around offering the tourists old Azerbaijani carpets, papags [Caucasian fur hats], daggers, copper and china vessels; you can hear the sounds of the azan, the call to prayer, from the mosques, inspect the ancient Haci Qaib, Aga Mikayil and Qasim bay bath houses, the Shirvanshahs' Palace…

Every little street paved with ancient cobble-stones and every house testifies to the age-old history of the fortress. It is sufficient to close your eyes, and you are transported back many centuries, imagining the caravans with their wealthy merchants, local traders offering carpets, silk and gold; you also imagine the oil magnates counting the profits from the sale of the first Baku oil, the modest Azerbaijani women wearing yashmaks…

Never taken by force…

You will be amazed at the huge stone-walled cylindrical-shaped tower with its narrow window apertures similar to battlement embrasures. The tower was erected on an outcrop of rock jutting out into the Caspian Sea. Today the tower is no longer washed by the waters of the Caspian Sea, but is separated from it by an avenue and the famous Baku Boulevard.

You will be told that that there is a legend connected with the Qiz Qalasi [Maiden Tower], according to which a young maiden threw herself into the swirling waters of the Caspian Sea to escape being married off to someone she did not love.

The name Qiz [Maiden] means "unassailable", "unsubjugated".

Legends are legends, but what is not known for certain is why this unique structure was erected. Owing the small space in the tower's interior and the narrow window apertures, it would not be very suitable for defence. It is most likely that this was a Zoroastrian temple. In the 18th and 19th centuries the tower was used as a lighthouse.

The Maiden Tower, which is the most unique structure in the Ancient East, is the most magnificent and mysterious monument in Baku, an undeclared symbol of the capital of Azerbaijan.

The tower has several times been restored. Today the big market square and arcade adjacent to it have been restored too. Since the year 2000 The Maiden Tower has been included on the UNESCO list of monuments.

The tower is 29.5 metres high and 16.5 metres in diameter. Inside, it is divided into eight levels, each of which is roofed with a shallow stone vault with a central aperture.

 Houses a museum, where ancient carpets, utensils and amusing installations demonstrating everyday life in the 18th and 19th centuries are on display. .  

You can climb up a spiral stone staircase to the top, and, when you get right to the top, you will be able to enjoy a cool and extremely splendid view of the Baku bay.

A pearl of a fortress

A real treasure of Azerbaijani architecture, the Palace of the Shirvanshahs erected in the 15th century, is located here in The Old City.

This splendid palace is constructed in terraces descending from the top of Baku Hill, with three of its main buildings built on three different levels.

The ensemble directly incorporates the two-storey building of the palace, the burial vault, the mosque, the divankhana [reception hall], the mausoleum of Seyid Yahya Bakuvi, the bath-house and the "Murad Gate".

The building with elegant portals decorated with unique carving, is crowned with luxurious domes. The unparalleled beauty of this creation of mediaeval masters attracts numerous tourist who spend quite a lot of time here, admiring the unique creations of ancient times.

The Cuma or Cathedral Mosque is also located on the territory of the Old City. This is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims as well as a major tourist attraction.

It was built on the site of the fire-worshippers' temple. All that remains of the old structure is four roofless arches, which are thought to have been part of the temple.

In the view of many modern archaeologists, a pagan shrine, around which the fire-worshippers gathered, had previously been located on the site of the Cuma Mosque

In the 14th century the pagan temple had already been turned into a mosque. This is proven by the inscription "… in the month of racab 709 hijra (1309) in which Emir Sharaf ad-Din Mahmud ordered that this mosque be refurbished". 

In the 15th century a minaret was built onto the mosque. By the end of the 19th century, the old mosque had become unusable, so it was replaced by a new Cuma Mosque on the same site.

"Tongues of flames"

The same thing happened to Zoroastrianism which was preached by the ancient tribes living on the territory of Azerbaijan and is reflected in the architecture of modern Baku. But, if we want to be maximally precise, from ancient times Azerbaijan was called the Land of Fire, owing to the shallow subsurface oil and gas deposits from which flames were always flaring up. This determined the future coat of arms of Baku on which tongues of flames are depicted.

Thus, a new symbol of Azerbaijan's capital, the new, already world famous, "Flame towers", has appeared in the centre of Baku on a high hill, looking out over Baku bay. These are three high-rise buildings, including a five-star hotel and offices and flats.

The Flame Towers can be seen from almost anywhere in the city, not only thanks to their height, but also to their splendid lighting, which is recognised as the best in the world. The buildings are completely covered in LED screens displaying different pictures. But each of these "pictures" is replaced with the "movement of flames". In the evenings and during the night these towers rise above the city like giant torches, and you can keep on watching the "moving flames" for ever.

Unique Qala

But Baku does not only consist of the unique "Icheri Sheher" with its numerous ancient monuments and of unusual skyscrapers. The city is surrounded by dozens of villages, many of which are of enormous interest to travellers, and not only thanks to the Caspian seashore with its well-equipped beaches, sanatoria, boarding houses and medical facilities. A few kilometres from the centre of Baku you can acquaint yourself with the ancient history of Azerbaijan.

If you visit Qala, a small settlement in the environs of Baku, you can immediately see 243 historical and architectural monuments. This area has an extremely rich centuries-old historical past. It is no accident that the territory of Qala covering an area of more than 200 ha was declared a state historical and ethnographic museum complex in 1988.

The name "Qala" means "fortress". It originates from the citadel built on the heights there in the 14th century. Unfortunately, the tower of the fortress has been almost completely destroyed. Today only ruins of the fortress walls and the mediaeval Cuma Mosque adjacent to them are left; the mosque can be entered by an underground gallery. 

You can see several ancient bath-houses, wells and reservoirs on the territory of the village. The oldest well dating back to 1665 has been preserved in the grounds of a cemetery. In the cemetery you can see unique tombs in the form of burial vaults as well as graves with stone chests decorated with carving and Arabic ornamental script, as also old 17th- to 18th-century mausoleums.

The Temple of the Eternal Fire

But the world famous Zoroastrian temple of "Atasgah" is probably the most exotic monument, which is situated 30 km from the centre of Baku on the outskirts of the village of Suraxani.

This territory is famous for being a unique natural phenomenon: gas which is forcing its way out of the ground bursts into flame once it comes in contact with oxygen. This is where the name "the Atasgah Temple of the Eternal Fire" comes from.

The temple that tourists see today was built in the 17th and18th centuries by a Hindu Sikh commune living in Baku. 

But the history of the temple is an ancient one. Roughly at the beginning of the first millennium AD, Zoroastrian fire-worshippers, who attributed a mystical significance to fire, had a shrine here, to which numerous believers used to flock. 

The earliest building of the temple dates back to 1713. The most recent structure is the temple's central altar whose construction was financed by a merchant from Kancanagar in 1810. During the 18th century caravanserais, meeting-houses and monks' cells sprang up around the shrine, in which there are carved inscriptions in Indian devanagari and Gurmukhi scripts.

At the start of the 19th century, the Ateshgah temple already looked like it does today, with a pentagonal structure with a crenelated outer wall and an entrance portal. A stone gazebo-type altar-like sanctuary stands in the middle of the courtyard, at the corners of which there are several hearths. There is a well in the centre of the altar from which the "eternal fire" blazes. The guest room or "balaxana", which is traditional in Abseron, is situated above the entry portal.

In the middle of the 19th century the natural gas stopped escaping into the temple owing to movement in the surface of the Earth. The pilgrims perceived that as a punishment meted out by the gods and began to abandon the site. The temple continued to be venue for worship right up until 1880. But today "Atasgah" is open to tourists who want to see its artificial flames.

But there is still a great deal of gas in the underground deposits and it constantly leaks out onto the surface. Mount Yanar Dag, which is situated 25 km to the north of Baku in the village of Mahammadi is yet another "eternal flame" site that is popular with tourists. It is a hill rather than a mountain on the slopes of which gas has been burning since ancient times. The metre-high tongues of fire "lick" the earth over an area approximately 10 metres wide.

Tourists usually sit on benches watching the burning hill in the evening when the spectacle is the most beautiful.

The open-air museum

We must not forget to mention the Qobustan National Park. This is an archaeological park, a real open-air museum of extremely ancient history situated 60 km to the south of Baku.

It is precisely here in Qobustan that ancient sites of primitive peoples were stumbled upon back in the 1930s. These peoples left unique rock drawings - petroglyphs, real monuments of the art of primitive communities, depicting the everyday life, world outlook, culture, traditions and customs of these ancient people. According to scholars' data, the petroglyphs date back to different ages. They were created from the 10th to 18th centuries BC up to the Middle Ages.

These drawings show the evolution of the whole of mankind. The scenes of hunting mountain goats and ritual dances with spears reflect the Mesolithic period; the hunting on horseback and on foot, of fighting, scenes of collective labour, gathering in the harvest, women by the hearths date back to the early centuries AD. Closer to the Middle Ages the drawings become smaller in size and more schematic… 

Caves and archaeological sites in which ancient people dwelt have been found in Qobustan too.

Images of boats with oars have attracted attention and evoked enormous interest in the world famous scholar and traveller Thor Heyerdahl.

At the foot of Mount Beyuk das in Qobustan there is an inscription in Latin dating from the 1st century AD and testifying to the presence of Roman troops on this territory. 

Glittering skyscrapers, modern shopping centres, beaches and aquaparks. Tourists are increasingly associating Baku with Dubai. Nonetheless, the city is carefully preserving the heritage of ancient times.

Early in the morning you can go to the Old City and buy a hand-woven carpet, admire the monuments of ancient times, go up the Maiden Tower, have lunch in restaurant serving Azerbaijani cuisine, make a trip to one of the beaches on Abseron, and in the evening you can sit in one of the ultra-modern bars, admiring the "tongues of flame" on the Flame Towers.

While acquiring a stylish, modern look, Baku remains an eastern city, full of the charm and colour which is only characteristic of the mysterious East…