In brief: Beyond the Old City, Baku also makes a dazzling impression. The fresh-looking century-old buildings are complemented by eye-catching contemporary architecture.
The rest of the central city of Baku also makes a dazzling impression.
The century-old buildings, dating from another boom time, look freshly renovated. Our wander through the ancient city dating back 600 years or so also showed it rejuvenated, with the feel of the old as well as modern renewal. (Click here to read that post.)
Across the city, furthermore, one can find eye-catching contemporary architecture. And Baku has made its grand boulevards and parks, its walkways along the long shoreline of the Caspian Sea, and its streets so very inviting.
People throng the old and new areas of the central city throughout the day, clearly enjoying Baku’s charms – as did we.
To the north of the Old City, just outside the medieval walls and double gate, sit some of the finest of the city’s buildings from the early 1900s, like the City Hall, the neo-Baroque Opera House, and academic buildings like the Ismailliyya Palace.
A formal park in this area, with classically styled fountains, adds extra grace.
A grande dame of an apartment block just outside the old walled city. Even the antique touches like the Ottoman-style punch-out porch seem new. This is a fancy street in other ways: many high-end stores like Gucci occupy the lower floors.
The grand “bulvar” along the Caspian shoreline seems to go forever, following the parks and new developments east of the old city and leading to public buildings and beaches to the south and west. This shows some of the stylish modern architecture, including that troubled crescent-shaped building destined to be the Luna Hotel.
Two eras side by side near a grand park and the seaside boulevard: a sleek modern hotel alongside an Italianate Soviet-era government building, looking as freshly maintained as when it was built.
The grand wedding cake of a government building from the Soviet era in the imperial and neo-classical style favored by Stalin. This type of sandstone has been used here for buildings at least back to the era of the ruling Shahs in the 1500s.
Below ground at many metro stations you find modern versions of the old bazaars, rows and rows of shops selling anything you can imagine wanting.
The popular metro system goes deep into the ground near the old city, with trains packed much of the day. The trains look older in style from the outside, but are quite new inside. The system overall is quick and clean, even though it is always busy. Cost is about .30 USD.
Colorful new apartment buildings in the snazzy new Absheron district.
Fire and Water
Azerbaijan is known as the Land of Fire due to its rich deposits of oil and gas, which have occasionally percolated up and caught on fire for millennia. And then there’s the fiery desert around Baku, the capital, where those energy sources are harvested.
Yet we thought of the city as one of Fire and Water. It embraces the huge Caspian Sea and celebrates the vitality of water in a dry land by putting fountains all over town. It even rained during our stay.
On the outskirts of Baku, the Atesgah Fire Temple is a tourist attraction now. For over 200 years until the late 19th century, however, Hindu & Sikh pilgrims, as well as Zoroastrians, considered the site holy because of the natural eternal flame flaring from the ground. Reverence for this site may have dated much further back. Pilgrims and monks occupied the surrounding buildings like a hostel, and performed various rituals, even sacrifices. The flame still burns inside this 17th century structure, where the gas was also channeled to the four corners to be lit up like torches. Across Azerbaijan, you can find similar natural flare-ups where gas leaks to the surface.
Vista of central Baku along the Caspian Sea, from a platform high on a ridge near the Flame Towers. You can ascend here from the sea by tram, but we opted to climb the 600 steps instead. Along the left of the picture sprawl 19th century buildings, ending in new developments to the rear. Parks follow the coastline and boardwalk. At the bottom right is a floral building that mystified us from afar – an imitation, we thought, of the Sydney Opera House. It turned out to be a shopping mall whose central tower displays, yes, a ring of fire.
View from the Caspian Sea boulevard toward the south and west of the city shows the iconic Flame Towers, yes in the shape of a flame. They look watery blue during the day, but at night, when not displaying the Azerbaijani flag rippling in a virtual breeze, flames seem to flicker along the sides of the towers.
A Flame Tower on (virtual) fire.
Two of the three Flame Towers, watery blue during the day. There are three in all – one a residence, one a hotel, and one for offices. The minaret towers are those of the solemn, but impressive Mosque of the Martyrs, or the Turkish Mosque (as a gift from Turkey). It dates from the 1990s so is truly not much older than the Flame Towers. It adjoins Martyrs’ Lane, a memorial and cemetery honoring those who died in civil wars: the Nagorno-Karabakh war ending in the 1990s as well as those that followed World War I.
The broad park accompanying the seaside boulevard, separating any roadway noise from the shore. Heading west, it’s hard to miss those Flame Towers, high up on the promontory overlooking the city.
How better to adorn this charming, century-old section of town than with a lot of fountains? So here is the main plaza of Fountain Square where locals teem for dining and shopping. That’s one of its contemporary fountains on the left, though several historic ones bubble in other sections.
The Nizami Street shopping district connects with Fountain Square. Its sumptuous turn-of-the-last century buildings are impeccably maintained.
Fountains abound in the city, both the older type and fanciful new ones. This one presents three forms of spirituality in its female images within the lovely Molokan Gardens. The Molokane were a Christian sect displaced by the Tsar to the Caucasus. In the mid-19th century, Molokane farmers built sheds to sell their goods in this area and began to live nearby. The gardens were an urban renewal project of the late 19th century that displaced the Molokane again.
This charming one looks like a multi-spigot water cooler. It is close to the Old City along a set of streets packed with century-old buildings, whose ground level shops now feature high-end brands.
Near the late-19th century neo-baroque building of the Philharmonic Hall bubbles this other delightful fountain with its neo-classical backdrop.
This is the old train station from over a century ago to the northeast of the central city at the 28 May plaza. Its renovation preserved its Moorish Revival façade. From our hotel, we watched the non-stop remake of the huge bus plaza around it, including this colorful bubbler of a fountain, just in time to greet the conferees of the COP29 international climate summit here.
A view of the entire 28 May area, with the newer entrance building of the train station to the left of its old Moorish Revival façade. The sleek trains seem very new as well. As you look up the hillside, you can see the squat older buildings alongside a host of more recent housing developments.
Speaking of watering holes, we found this longhorn bar near us in the central city, a touch of home perhaps…with Texas beers like, ah, Danish Carlsberg, Belarussian Alivaria, French Kronenburg, or Azerbaijani Xirdalan and Salyan?? We preferred the British tavern, Pushkin Pub!
Lastly, on the subject of fire…
Bread cooked and toasted on the side of a large hot clay oven (“tone”), like naan, is very popular here in Baku and in neighboring countries like Georgia as well. It’s even called puri, which must come from the Hindi. Small shops wafting the tempting smell of fresh baked bread abound in the city. A very tasty, slightly chewy 300 cm long piece, looking like half of a sub sandwich bread, costs about a half dollar.
This shop is different and particularly demonstrates the popularity. It’s a large standalone ‘factory’ for the bread that is part of a highway roadside stop which feels a bit like a village.
In the photo, she seems to be cooking larger breads for local khachapuri, the cheesy bread dish. There are convenience stores on one side, a huge restaurant in the middle, fuel over on the side, and a sizable toilet building where everyone jostles for parking.
(To enlarge any picture above, click on it. Also, for more pictures from Azerbaijan, CLICK HERE to view the slideshow at the end of the itinerary page.)
