Bizarrebaijan

From: Tbilisi, Georgia

The next bunch of posts will cover the countries of the South Caucasus. This little region sits in between Russia, the Caspian, Turkey and the Middle East -- it includes Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia and the disputed independent republic of Nagorno-Karabagh. This post is on Baku and the surrouding region.

Baku is a beautiful and charming city, a combination of bustling, modern oil-town and slow-paced, romantic old neighborhoods. The newer neighborhoods are full of stately buildings modeled after Paris, many of them tastefully refurbished with the city's newfound petrodollars. My favorite part, however, is Iceri-Seher, the rambling and atmospheric old town where we managed to find a hostel. The streets of the old town are built on the side of a hill, and are ringed in by ancient castle walls dating several hundred years.

A picturesque mosque in the heart of the Old Town:

A few of the neighborhood from the gigantic Virgin Tower (Not the Gigantic-Virgin Tower, which would have different implications):


A shady street:


A park just outside the city walls:


Baku is also a great place to explore the surrounding area. We took a couple of trips: one north to Suraxani, and one south to Qobustan.

Suraxani is a dusty and boring suburb of Baku, on the polluted and blighted Abseron Peninsula. Sounds fun already, doesn't it? Suraxani has one really cool sight, though: the Atesgah Fire Temple, built on an ancient Zoroastrian temple site dating back 2,500 years. Although the initial structure was destroyed by invading Arabs a long time ago, some Parsees from India (who worshipped the fire) came and built the current structure a few hundred years ago. There is a small community of fire worshippers who still pray at the temple. I was expecting some giant fire pit like in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but it was really just a couple of tame fire set into the ground. No human sacrifices either.

The site was understated but cool to see. It's apparently the more impressive of only two fire temples outside of India, and it was cool to see a religious that was as old as 2,500 years. Here, the heart of the temple:



The walls of the temple had old Sanskrit and Farsi carvings, as well as rooms that were part of a caravanserai (like a motel, but older and with more charm). For your education, I have painstakingly reconstructed a typical day in the life of the Indian Parsees at the temple:



We also took a trip to the bizarre district of Qobustan. Qobustan is home to three good sights. In increasing oddness:

1. The easternmost Roman graffiti ever discovered. Some imperial soldier was supposed to be doing recon but instead decided to carve his name into the rock. This was before spraypaint, you see.

2. Cave carvings. Qobustan is home to a staggering array (over 30,000) of carvings and cave drawings by the earlier inhabitants of Azerbaijan. Some of these go back to the Upper Paleolithic period (as far back as 35,000 B.C.), a period that interests me because of my favorite book, The Clan of the Cave Bear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_of_the_Cave_Bear -- you'll probably hate it, but I think it's good). There are tools and carvings from that period, all the way up until the present. Many of the carvings show giant dogs, buffalo, horses and deer.

The most intriguing archaeological finding in the caves is the hundreds of carvings of reed boats. The distinctive design of these boats matches those of early Scandinavian settlers, leading some scientists to speculate that the Vikings and similar ethnic groups may have originated in modern-day Azerbaijan long ago (the Caspian, Black and North Seas were once connected). A quick glance at actual Azeris makes me a bit skeptical of this idea, but it's food for thought.

3. Mud volcanoes. The highlight of Qobustan is definitely the chain of twenty-something little mud volcanoes clustered on a small plateau. High pressure from natural gas under the ground causes the greyish mud to shoot out of the volcanoes every few seconds. Standing in the middle of the volcanoes (they're as tall as a person), you can hear popping and farting sounds all around you. Some of the volcanoes produce big muddle bubbles that splash up into the air -- quite a show. The strange thing is that the volcanoes are completely cold. I don't know if it will upload here, but I have some good video footage of the site.

The top of a small volcano:

A river of slow-flowing mud:

Azerbaijan's people have impressed me as much as the sites. Central Asians talk more about hospitality, but the Azeris I've met have been genuinely welcoming in a very humble, understated way. When Thierry and I were coming back from Suraxani, three women saw us searching for directions to the Old City. They took us by the hand, insisted on paying for our subway ticket, took us to the right train, and told us where to go. Then, when the first thing women got off, another young lady decided to help us, and walked with us for 30 minutes out of her way to make sure we got back home. That story might be exceptional, but all the people I've met here have been incredible friendly.

Time's up for Azerbaijan, however. Because of the high prices there, I ended up cutting my time short. I'm a bit sad about that; three days in this amazing country is just scratching the tip of an interesting iceberg. I still want to se the Mountain of Languages, a series of high-altitude communities in the Azeri Caucasus that were cut off from the rest of the region for a long time. Many groups here (such as the Mountain Jews of Quba) speak languages found only in a few villages in the entire world. But, I guess that will have to wait until next time.

Next up: Armenia, probably