We got up to another glorious day! Looking forward to our final long drive of the tour back along the road we had taken from Baku to Sheki to return to the Azerbaijani capital.

We strolled again along the main street in Lehij, this time downhill, to meet the bus. Here are a couple more pics for you:

The first pic is the little Mosque that serves the town, the second is a water fountain – perhaps linked to ritual washing ahead of entering the Mosque, but don’t quote me….

Once on the bus we re-traced our route along that wonderful mountain road to get down to the main highway between Sheki and Baku: i cannot resist showing you some more pics:

I’m no geologist but the first pic shows sedimentary rock layers which by definition would have been laid horizontally. Just try to imagine the geological violence that led to those horizontal layers becoming verticle!

It is also true that given some of the well founded criticism of corruption in Azerbaijan and workers being paid slave wages while Oligarchs make billions from oil related commerce – we gathered that these developments are perceived as going some small way towards dealing with that imbalance.

Now i have to put my cards on the table: whatever disgust i have for the political system in Azerbaijan, the desire to expunge Armenia from the map and the rampant corruption, i thought Baku was a great city! Somehow those in power have managed to deploy their oil dollars not only to build huge vanity projects but also to carefully and expertly protect their legacy of ancient buildings in the Old City of Baku.

And the place is lively, beautifully laid out, full of confident looking young people going about their business. Bars, clubs, restaurants as well as Museums, Art Galleries and more history than you can shake a stick at.

Loved it….

Here is a selection of pics that i hope will convey some of this to you…..

The building started life in 1850 as a single story caravanserai, going through numerous metamorphoses to arrive where it is today: one of the greatest and richest treasuries of Azerbaijan culture.

Nizami was a 12th century Persian Sunni Muslim poet considered as the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature.

There are lots of ruins of Bath Houses in the Old City of Baku: here are a few pics to give you some idea….

As i have said before, if you want to look at any of these pics full-screen then depending on the device you are using and your Operating System you should be able to achieve that with a single click on your chosen image.

Here are a couple of pics of the Maiden Tower, taken from different angles, plus some views from the top.

Aside from the amazing Flame Towers – of which more later – you can see the stunning and recently constructed Crescent Hotel. In the main, these are not just vanity projects – they have been built by entrepreneurs using oil money.

The ancient Maiden Tower is worth a word or two, having become as synonymous with Baku as the ultra modern Flame Towers, substantially on the back of publicity gleaned from the F1 street race held in the city.

There is actually little agreement on the nature and purpose of the Maiden Tower: most agree it was built in the 12th century with some experts conjecturing that it is a paramount example of Zoroastrianism and the pre-Islamic architecture in Iran and Azerbaijan, some even argue that the Tower is a Zoroastrian Fire-Temple Tower which had 7 fire exits on the top of the tower! Zoroastrians apparently believed that there are 7 Steps to reach heaven.

Hmmm….

There are endless myths and stories about the genesis of the tower: inevitably this includes one about a fiery haired girl who became the Tower’s pahlevan [Persian word for champion] when it was under seige. She disguised herself as a man and sallied forth to do battle with the enemy’s champion. She beat him, of course, they fell in love and lived happily ever after.

I think i prefer that story…..

Lots of interesting one-off architecture around Baku, which you will have gathered by now i enjoy…. Here are some examples [looking like i have a thing for balconies??]:

The inhabitants of Baku may not be the most devout Moslems in the Islamic world, but they do have lots and lots of Mosques to choose from when they feel the need to pray. This is the many times rebuilt Juma Mosque: most recently in 1899 with its origin in the 14th century:

Another major historic site in Baku, not quite as famous as the Maiden Tower is the Shirvanshah palace. As with the Maiden Tower, experts disagree on when it was built, but it looks like the 15th century is about right. The Palace was fought over many times and eventually it was transferred to the Russian military department in the middle of the 19th century. From about 1920 the Azerbaijan SSR authorities began to take steps to protect what was left of the Palace but it was not until 1992 that serious renovation work began to take place. In 2006, the next restoration of the palace was completed, following the inclusion of the Old City of Baku on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2000.

Here are some pics for you:

The first pic is the entrance to the Palace and the second shows bullet holes in the wall, allegedly as the result of gunfire from Armenian Dashnacks in 1918. The dome is above the vestibule at the entrance to the palace and you can see a lovely colourful wall covering. The final two pics are of the ruined bath house in the palace grounds.

Another part of the complex is called the Divankhana and again there are erudite disagreements about when and why it was built. Most commonly held view is that it was built in the 15th century as a tomb for himself by the order of Shirvanshah Farrukh Yasar. There are many other views!!! Here are some pics:

Yet another building in the Palace complex is called The Shah Mosque. The mosque was built in 1441-1442 by the order of Shirvanshah I Khalilullah. The mosque has two entrance portals: one of them faces the opening of the portal of the Shirvanshahs’ tomb, and the other is next to it and is on the side wall. The first portal belonged to outsiders, and the second to those living in the palace – Shirvanshah and his relatives!

Yet another building is the Tomb of Shirvanshah’s family which is a mausoleum constructed in Baku in about 1457-1458 for the burial of the mother of Shirvanshah Kalilullah1 – Bike Khanim -and his 6 year old son Farrukh Yamin. As you can see there are some caskets within the mausoleum but these are generally thought to be empty: there is a rather poingnant small casket to the right of the others probably that of Shirvanshah Kalilullah1’s 6 year old son….

We had this a couple of times and i guess i was rather underwhelmed – clearly i am not a connoisseur of rice cooking!!!

So, final day tomorrow of our whistle-stop tour of the three countries that make up the South Caucasus……

In the meantime, having enjoyed our dinner a few of us then ambled back to the hotel going the pretty way so that we would have a chance to view the illumination of the Flame Towers. Here are some short vids to share what we saw…..