Baku - the walking tour

As is traditional, we did a walking tour of Baku today but with one subtle difference - this was a paid for tour rather than a free one (I had quite a lot of credit with Viator!)

So we met with a young man called Namiq who guided us effortlessly over the next 3.5 hours through the old town and more, of Baku.

Namiq was a veritable mine of information talking virtually nonstop the whole tour without so much as a sip of water or a break. And it was pretty hot!

I suppose it helps that his grandfather teaches history in one of AZs 48 universities, but even so. As it was just the two of us, it was a very personalised one with him answering (almost) all of our - something challenging - questions but as usual, it was information overload so here is just some of what we learnt about AZ, Baku and our general impressions ...

We met Namiq in Nizami Park, underneath a large statue of a famous Persian poet called Nizami Ganjavi who died in 1209 but remains a very important cultural figure. Azerbaijan is celebrates their ports, scientists cultural figures intensely and this was just the beginning of a theme of cultural statues that are all over the place in the city centre, each with a certain relevance to the immediate area or to Baku in general.

We found the most interesting one to be of Aliagha Vahid, a poet (died 1965) famous for very satirical traditional poems. Apparently he was a bit of a troubled soul which was really reflected in his sculpted face. What's more, many scenes from his life and work are woven into the sculpture all around his giant head!

Two further themes ran through our tour - history and oil wealth.
Baku is one of the Silk Road cities with borders to the south with Iran, Armenia to the west and Russia and Georgia to the north. Thus it has had a bit of a turbulent past with many interested parties taking control at some time. Some items to pick out:
- The Shirvanshahs were a medieval royal dynasty in the 15th century. Their palace is one of the main attraction in Baku, although Namiq wasn't so enthusiastic about it !
- Persian influence was significant after the dynasty fell. Right up until....
- the Russian empire took over in the early 1800s. Which in turn ended with the Russian revolution.
- From May 1918, AZ had this first independence for 23 months until..
- the Bolsheviks invaded and AZ was absorbed into the Soviet Union until proper independence was achieved in Oct 1991.

As for oil, the country was known to be an area of substantial oil reserves (locals found oil when digging during house building) but it wasn't until the 1840s that they properly started to drill and subsequently the Russians allowed private investment.
By the time of the first AZ independence there were 47 oil millionaires in Baku. Many were generous for city needs, founding schools, hospitals etc. On our tour we saw several oil millionaire residences. All but one had fled the country by the time the communists took over but their mark is still visible today. Currently 90% of AZs income is generated by oil.

The old city has many interesting buildings, a lot had Polish or German architects. Some were destroyed by the Bolsheviks but many survive. There are also many mosques (AZ is 90% Muslim) however there is no state religion as freedom of religion and religious tolerance is important to the country. There is then, a museum of tolerance, emphasizing Islam, Christianity and Judaism together. We did not go in .......

One of the many museums we did go into was the museum of small books. It's even in the Guinness book of world records having the largest collection of tiny reading material. Including the smallest in the world that you can hardly see let alone read! (It's from Japan and printed with laser technology)

We were supposed to end the tour at Highland park but the time had flown and we didn't get to the funicular before it closed for lunch! Fortunately we had been there briefly yesterday so were able to ask Namiq a few questions about it before we said goodbye.

So, after some liquid refreshment we made our own way up there.
In Soviet times this area was an amusement park but these days it's much more peaceful and pleasant, albeit a reminder of war casualties., war cemetery and several memorials.
Some parts remember over 1000 Turkish troops who died trying to help AZ resist the Bolsheviks in 1918. Other parts actually have graves of those who died fighting the Armenians in 1992 and the people massacred by the Russians during "perestroika" shortly before the collapse of the USSR.
Incidentally the most recent war with Armenia was in 2020 and some fighting was as recent as 2023. There is apparently a peace process being negotiated now and it made us wonder what life outside Baku might be like.

All in all a fascinating day, probably a good taste of what's to come.Read more