Baku, Azerbaijan: Ultra-Modern, Very Historic

The walls of the Old City of Baku

It's not easy getting from Las Vegas, Nevada USA, to Baku, Azerbaijan. But my impression of Baku so far is that it is totally worth it.

I left late morning on Tuesday, September 2, and I did not arrive at my hotel just on the edge of the Old City part of Baku until what was, local time, the very early morning hours of Thursday, September 4. Twenty-four of transit time, including layovers, plus an 11-hour time zone shift, added up to one long travel day. But at end of the travel road was Azerbaijan: my 44th country visited.

The hotel and the hotel bed definitely were a welcome site.  Same hotel, next morning:

I'm staying at "The Merchant," which like the City of Baku, is a perfectly blended mix of historic and ultra-modern. In other words, an historic building with high-ceiling rooms and big modern bathrooms and a shower large enough for the whole team. If I were part of a team. Which I'm not. Once again, this is a solo travel.

This is the street that sits in from The Merchant:

You may be wondering: Why is the hotel behind barricades? Why the chicken wire? Wire the empty roads? Is there something going on there? Yes. There is. A Formula One race, so a lot of the streets in the Old City are barricaded and shut down to only pedestrian traffic. Sound familiar to anyone who has to go to the south end of the Las Vegas Strip in the fourth quarter of the year?

Still, even with those Formula One preparations in place, Baku is a beautiful city.

And we've not even hit the parts of the city with the interesting ultra-modern architecture.

The heart of the Old City is a very short walk from my hotel.

Which is good, considering that I am barely functioning off residual adrenalin after the long travel time to the other side of the globe,

This is Sabir Bağı, a park next to the Old City.

Named after this gentleman:

Mirza Alakbar Sabir.

I am walking the edge of the Old City to take the funicular up to the Flame Towers.

And in this photo you can see the Flame Towers in the distance.

Three buildings built in the shape of flames. Why flames? Because Azerbaijan sits atop a huge amount of oil and natural gas, which is the basis for its wealth today.

This is a fountain with Zoroastrian symbolism.

 

Baku the City, and Azerbaijan the Country, are Moslem, although not anywhere close to the strand of conservative Islam such as that found in countries to the south. But there is a lot of Zoroastrian imagery found in the Old City. For example: the zodiac symbols at the base of the fountain. The zodiac is originally Greek, I believe, but it was hugely important in the iconography of the pre-Christian, pre-Islam Zoroastrians.

It is about this time that I notice the time. The funicular is shut down for lunch everyday between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m.  And I have a walking tour scheduled for 4:00 p.m.

So it is time to turn around and to take in the nearby National Museum of the History of Azerbaijan.

And just a short saunter away is the museum:

It's in a repurposed mansion on a small side street near the hotel and the Old City.

There are some interesting visual displays:

Who doesn't love a skinny horse?

The collection goes way back in time, to the time of Sumerians and the beginning of recorded history.

Azerbaijan is an ancient land.

The museum covers the developments of the Azerbaijani national identity.

The explanations are in English as well as the Azerbaijani language. Which is extremely helpful, but the descriptions are very important in learning the history of the Azerbaijanis.

Of course, some displays need no captions:

Eventually, after all the history, you get to what is typically my least favorite part of national museuns: costumes and musical instruments;

These are together in one giant room.

Here are the trousers worn by Azerbaijani wrestlers back in the old days.

Azerbaijan is well known nowadays for producing top-tier MMA fighters. Its tradition in the combat sports is well-established.

Next up was the brief amount of space dedicated to the Communist Era.

A communist rug:

Azerbaijanis love their carpets and have a tremendous carpet-making tradition,

I did learn that Azerbaijan was conquered by Russia during the late czarist period of the late 1700's and the early 1800's. So it already had been integrated into Russia before the arrival of communism, And a lot of the museum described the ongoing animosity between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Even though the two countries recently signed a peace treaty -- they've been in a state of war for quite some although it flared up again a few years ago in the border area far from Baku -- let's just say the blood is still bad.

And since the National Museum is in a mansion, it is the perfect spot for some wedding photography,

Time to scurry back to the hotel for some erst and hydration before the walking tour.

I did run into some fashion photography happening on the side streets of Baku:

I know Baku is not on many bucket lists. It should be.

My first impression -- and this could be the sleep deprivation talking -- is that Baku is a beautiful blend of the very historic and the very modern, filled with some of the friendliest, most welcoming, most "bend over backwards" helpful people I've met anywhere so far.

And I've not even gotten to ride the town funicular yet.