Cupped in an amphitheater of rumpled hills on the windy Caspian Sea coast, Baku has attracted human wanderers since the Stone Age. First it offered fish and shelter, then it flourished as a strategic medieval walled port made powerful through trade along the old Silk Road, and finally, in the mid-19th century, the city exploded as the world’s first petroleum capital.
By 1900 dynastic European fortunes were being made in Baku oil. (The Rothchilds and the Nobels, to name just two.) The nouveau riche, the local and the foreign-born, threw up gaudy opera houses and mansions in an eclectic mishmash of styles. (One instant Bakuvian oil millionaire modeled his estate on Venetian palaces.) The old caravanserai town morphed into the smudged fuel station of the industrial age. As one 1911 visitor famously reported: “Oil is in the air one breathes, in one’s nostrils, in one’s eyes, in the water of the morning bath (though not in the drinking water, for that is brought in bottles from distant mineral springs), in one’s starched linen — everywhere.”
Once the seat of local Muslim Shirvanshah rulers, Baku has changed hands many times among vying empires: Imperial Russia, Persia, Ottoman Turkey, and, briefly, Great Britain. “Baku is a blend of east and west, north and south,” says Fuad Akhundov, the unofficial historian of Azerbaijan’s seaside capital, one of the world’s most culturally tangled cities. “Baku accepts every idea that arrives here, then, somehow, it shapes it into something of its own.”
Today that influence game continues, if less violently, with Russia, the West, Iran, and Turkey — and multinational oil corporations — jockeying for access to Azerbaijan’s still rich oil and gas fields. When energy prices rocketed in the 2000s, Azerbaijan shrewdly juggled those interests. But with the oil market collapse, the country faces a reckoning: Its oil-dependent economy is stalled, and many investors are fleeing. To walk into Baku today — home to both the world’s largest Kentucky Fried Chicken and 500-year-old steam baths — was to walk into a shining city on edge.
Walking Baku
Paul Salopek
December 8 2015, 10:39 pm
Baku welcome
Paul Salopek
Azerbaijani walking partner Rufat Gojayev and I reach downtown Baku after trekking more than 280 miles from the mountain border of Georgia. Gojayev, a professional alpine climber and “Azerbaijan Sportsman of the Year – 2012,” led the way through the rugged foothills of the Greater Caucasus — so he could gaze at the 12,000-foot peaks en route. Rufat is a rarity among walkers: He looks up, not down.
December 18 2015, 4:25 pm
Urban starting line
Paul Salopek
The historic city gates of Old Baku — a defensive wall dating to the 12th century, torn down and rebuilt many times since. There were once two walls about 40 feet apart ringing Old Baku. If attackers breached the first, they found themselves trapped inside a moat, and arrowed from all sides.
December 18 2015, 4:34 pm
Morning commute, Old Baku
Paul Salopek
The faint tap of footfalls echoing in narrow lanes.
December 18 2015, 4:35 pm
Blue dragon scales
Paul Salopek
The cobbles of Old Baku.
December 18 2015, 4:39 pm
Maiden Tower in downtown Baku
Paul Salopek
A mysterious, 90-foot fortification that may date back to the 4th or 5th century A.D. Its stone foundations are buried almost 50 feet under today’s street level.
December 18 2015, 4:41 pm
Name mystery
Paul Salopek
The origin of the name “Maiden Tower” is unknown. Legend says the daughter or sister of a khan was imprisoned there, until she threw herself from its parapet in despair or defiance. “Maybe she was in love,” says city walking partner Aydan Zeynalova. “It’s how some people solve romantic problems.” There are, in fact, anti-suicide barriers installed atop the tower.
December 18 2015, 4:43 pm
City of stone, city of steel
Paul Salopek
The glass Flame Towers — symbolizing Azerbaijan’s long history with burning natural gas seeps — loom above the restored old city. Baku has long attracted fire worshippers, dating back more than 2,000 years to Zoroastrians. “There are various barren places in Baku,” wrote Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century. “If a man or a horse should put his foot down there and stand a while, his foot will start to burn. Caravan guides dig up the earth in those places, set kettles in it, and the food starts to boil immediately. Prodigious is God’s wisdom!”
December 18 2015, 4:46 pm
Survived 70 years of Soviet repression? At least you get a lousy hat. Red kitsch seller in Old Baku.
Paul Salopek
Soviet Kitsch
December 18 2015, 4:49 pm
The most delicate quality
Paul Salopek
The crystal light of the Caspian Sea on Apsheron limestone.
December 18 2015, 4:54 pm
Siege city
Paul Salopek
When an invading Imperial Russian fleet surrounded Baku in 1723 (one of many such sieges), a ship’s cannonball clipped the minaret of the old city’s Mohammed Mosque. Local wags say it was “circumcised.”
December 18 2015, 5:04 pm
Alley ways
Paul Salopek
A touch of humanity amid oil-stoked gentrification: Old Baku.
December 18 2015, 5:05 pm
Alley cats
Paul Salopek
Tbilisi, the capital of neighboring Georgia, is a street-dog town. Baku is ruled by alley cats.
December 18 2015, 5:30 pm
“Our biggest sellers are de-worming teas,” says Agil Nazarov, who runs a herbal apothecary inside a 17th-century steam bath. “Worms. A lot of worms. Eight out of ten customers come for worms.” Why? “Unwashed greens.” Old Baku.
Paul Salopek
Apothecary
December 18 2015, 5:55 pm
Water music
Paul Salopek
Fountain in Old Baku.
December 18 2015, 6:00 pm
Melody
Paul Salopek
Tree, rock, and nitrogen-blue sky outside the Baku State Philharmonic.
December 18 2015, 6:04 pm
Elegant surfaces
Paul Salopek
Walking on marble outside the Baku State Philharmonic.
December 18 2015, 6:08 pm
Loneliness of power
Paul Salopek
Guarded street of diplomatic guesthouses near the presidential palace. We could pass by, not linger.
December 18 2015, 6:15 pm
Fat cat
Paul Salopek
Outside the United Nations office, Baku.
December 18 2015, 6:18 pm
Earning a view
Paul Salopek
Climbing the hillside amphitheater that cups the port city of Baku.
December 18 2015, 6:19 pm
Going up for air
Paul Salopek
Rufat and Eydan climb from the urban shoreline of the Caspian Sea, which lies at 90 feet (about 30 meters) below sea level.
December 18 2015, 6:20 pm
Milk from stone
Paul Salopek
Aydan and Rufat peer into a rock shelter with empty graves inside, possibly dating from the Bronze Age, according to Rufat. The boulder, perched above Baku in a city park, now has acquired a folk fertility legend — as a “milk shrine.” Women crawl through its narrow opening for good luck in childbirth.
December 18 2015, 6:28 pm
Overview
Paul Salopek
From Stone Age campsite to medieval caravan port, from history’s first oil boomtown in the 19th century to the largest metropolitan center on the Caspian Sea today.
December 18 2015, 6:30 pm
More stone-stepping
Paul Salopek
December 18 2015, 6:31 pm
Urban edge
Paul Salopek
Guide Rufat Gojayev takes us on a “shortcut” — off the asphalt and through Soviet-era urban forest to a monument for Azerbaijani political martyrs.
December 18 2015, 6:32 pm
Urban alpinism
Paul Salopek
Mountaineer Rufat Gojayev finds some high country in Baku city.
December 18 2015, 6:32 pm
New surface
Paul Salopek
Pine needles — in the arid, urban hills above Baku.
December 18 2015, 6:33 pm
Paul Salopek
The Eternal Flame
December 18 2015, 6:37 pm
Paul Salopek
Black January
December 18 2015, 6:57 pm
A pub at the summit of the hills overlooking Baku.
Paul Salopek
Relief
December 18 2015, 7:34 pm
Strategy
Paul Salopek
Backgammon, one of oldest of Old World pastimes. Hilltop pub above Baku.
December 18 2015, 7:35 pm
The clack and hiss of strategy. A sound that may be 4,600 years old — such board games were found in ancient Ur, in Mesopotamia.
Paul Salopek
Strategy
The clack and hiss of strategy. A sound that may be 4,600 years old — such board games were found in ancient Ur, in Mesopotamia.
December 19 2015, 5:29 pm
Luxury, and its source. An oil pump — the symbol of Azerbaijan’s economy — grinds away next to a mansion of the nouveau riche. Descending back to the city.
Paul Salopek
Neighbors
Luxury, and its source. An oil pump — the symbol of Azerbaijan’s economy — grinds away next to a mansion of the nouveau riche. Descending back to the city.
December 19 2015, 5:38 pm
Gravity assist
Paul Salopek
Walking water pipes back down to the city center with a new partner, urban alpinist Namin Buntayov.
December 19 2015, 5:43 pm
Namin Buntayov, who likes to hang by his fingers off the tallest skyscrapers in Baku, demonstrates his adrenaline fix: clinging …
Paul Salopek
High life
Namin Buntayov, who likes to hang by his fingers off the tallest skyscrapers in Baku, demonstrates his adrenaline fix: clinging without a rope atop a 20-foot-tall boulder. “It makes me feel very alive.”
December 19 2015, 5:44 pm
Namin Buntayov, who likes to hang by his fingers off the tallest skyscrapers in Baku, demonstrates his adrenaline fix: clinging without a rope atop a 20-foot-tall boulder. “It makes me feel very alive.”
Out of Eden Walk
High life
Namin Buntayov, who likes to hang by his fingers off the tallest skyscrapers in Baku, demonstrates his adrenaline fix: clinging without a rope atop a 20-foot-tall boulder. “It makes me feel very alive.”
December 19 2015, 5:44 pm
Overlook
Paul Salopek
View of downtown Baku and Caspian from the wind-hammered hills above the city.
December 19 2015, 5:48 pm
Once the tallest
Paul Salopek
View of the second tallest flagpole in the world. “Ours was the biggest,” explains Rufat, “until Tajikistan made one a few centimeters higher.”
December 19 2015, 5:49 pm
Sea of green
Paul Salopek
Artificial forest, Baku.
December 19 2015, 6:15 pm
Urban maze
Paul Salopek
Descending through the Nizami district, a maze of narrow alleys and cramped homes that exploded in the 1960s to house railroad and factory workers.
December 19 2015, 6:17 pm
Paul Salopek
Shanghai
Yo-yoing up and down the branching stairwells of “Shanghai” — a lively Baku enclave named after the teeming, faraway Asian city. The hillside settlement, densely packed, and overlooking the Caspian Sea, once was a multiethnic hub for railroad and factory workers, including ethnic Armenians who fled at the outbreak of the Nagorno-Karabakh war. The neighborhood now houses many Azerbaijani refugees displaced by that same conflict.
December 19 2015, 6:20 pm
Out of Eden Walk
Shanghai
December 19 2015, 6:58 pm
Circling back
Paul Salopek
Downtown again — and the world of machined surfaces.
December 19 2015, 7:03 pm
The gusher started here: The world’s first industrial oil well, circa 1847
Paul Salopek
Black gold
The gusher started here: The world’s first industrial oil well, circa 1847
December 19 2015, 7:09 pm
Ups and downs
Paul Salopek
Fossil fuels generate about two-thirds of Azerbaijan’s revenues — a gilded cage. Good times flowed over the past decade, when the price per barrel skyrocketed. Today the capital reels from plummeting crude markets. A working well in front of the Baku Aquatic Center.
December 19 2015, 7:19 pm
All ours
Paul Salopek
The reclaimed Baku waterfront.
December 19 2015, 8:03 pm
Waterfront
Paul Salopek
More ghostly oil boom architecture.
December 19 2015, 8:10 pm
Ancient colors
Paul Salopek
Azeri carpet-making is legendary. The colors stunned travelers along the Silk Road — leaves of fig trees produced rich ochre hues, saffron gave carpet-weaver orange, and the pomegranates tinted wool rusty browns.
December 19 2015, 9:08 pm
All theirs
Paul Salopek
The Caspian — and everything else. Baku waterfront.
December 19 2015, 9:18 pm
Bronze-age welcome
Paul Salopek
Statue of maître d’. Baku waterfront.
December 19 2015, 9:19 pm
Waterfront juices
Paul Salopek
A timeless scene from the old Silk Road.
December 19 2015, 9:23 pm
Monument to absences
Paul Salopek
Impromptu memorial to oil workers killed by a fire on an offshore rig. Baku waterfront.
December 19 2015, 9:34 pm
This is Baku too
Paul Salopek
December 19 2015, 9:36 pm
Passages
Paul Salopek
Underground pedestrian crossings: inherited from Soviet-era urban planners and polished to a shine by oil wealth.
December 19 2015, 9:45 pm
Lacquered fountain
Paul Salopek
Downtown Baku.
December 19 2015, 9:56 pm
Staged revolutions
Paul Salopek
Azerbaijan State Russian Drama Theater — originally known as the State Free Satirical Agitation Theatre (1920), then Baku Workers’ Theatre (a few months later), and later Azerbaijan State Red Banner theatre (1937).
December 19 2015, 9:58 pm
French Embassy
Paul Salopek
Look up in downtown Baku: a city with political layers.
December 19 2015, 10:10 pm
Baked sweets, tea, elbow-polished tables, and decades-long conversations among regular clients.
Paul Salopek
Nameless tea shop
Baked sweets, tea, elbow-polished tables, and decades-long conversations among regular clients.
December 19 2015, 10:37 pm
Old ways in a global city
Paul Salopek
An Azerbaijani family holds a funeral service in a tent outside their apartment — remnants of an antique nomad lifestyle in a no-parking zone.
December 19 2015, 10:38 pm
Fountain Square
Paul Salopek
The chic commercial core of Baku.
December 19 2015, 10:42 pm
Bard
Paul Salopek
Monuments to poets: a common feature of Baku. This one honors the 12th-century genius in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, Koranic studies, history, ethnics, philosophy, music and arts, the bard, Nizami: “In the language of love, speech is our soul./We are speech, these ruins are our palaces.”
December 19 2015, 10:45 pm
Crossover
Paul Salopek
One of many architectural relics of Baku’s 19th-century oil bonanza: palaces and mansions built in hybrid Ottoman and Baroque styles by famous European dynasties such as the Rothschilds and Nobels, and by local Azerbaijanis who reaped fortunes for their plots of oil-bubbling land. One instant millionaire was Zeynalabadin Taghiyev, a poor stonemason, who became one of the wealthiest men in Tsarist Russia. Taghiyev went on to become a pioneering philanthropist in the Carnegie mold, building hospitals, pipelines, orphanages and the first secular girls school in the Muslim world in Baku.
December 19 2015, 10:49 pm
Light and shadow
Paul Salopek
Baku’s crenellated downtown.
December 19 2015, 10:55 pm
Bronze bust
Paul Salopek
Vahid Aliaga, a people’s poet of the 20th century. Garden in Old Baku.
December 19 2015, 11:04 pm
Bath time
Paul Salopek
The walk team closes the circle at one of Old Baku’s steamy hamams, or communal baths. Baku neighborhoods once bathed together at dozens of hamams before the advent of modern plumbing in the city. Religious festivals, marriages, funerals — public and private life mixed freely in centuries-old bathhouses where domes locked in the steam, and most business got done. Today several hamams still operate in Old Baku, with separate days scheduled for men and women.
