Bakıya Səyahətim və Niyə Xoş Təəccübləndim

Today was one of the walking tours I had booked. I went to get breakfast (stupid pills) and then I decided to get the metro to the meeting point. I got there about 20 minutes before I was due to meet the guide.

The area is called Icherisheher and it is the location of the old city. I walked around here and had a closer view of the Flame Towers. I was also able to see the concert hall/opera house. It is a really cool building. It was time to head back to the metro station to meet the guide. I messaged him and told him I was wearing a hoodie and some shorts. I am not sure he believed me though. he was dressed up like it was deepest Siberia and -50c (as were most of the people I had seen so far).

He saw me and said I was right when I said I was wearing shorts. I told him this was my kind of weather and explained where in the UK I grew up and he understood. He also had a colleague with him who was learning the route and the information.

At the metro station, there is a statue of Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev. He was a wealthy oil tycoon and a great philanthropist and is credited with building Baku and Azerbaijan as it is today. He was also instrumental in building a freshwater pipeline to the city. Baku is in a desert region and on the sea so fresh water was not easy to come by. He is also credited with bringing the theatre to Baku and also helped establish schools. He is particularly noted for opening a school for girls in the region.

We walked past the city hall building which is an impressive building. It’s very ornate and has a clock tower that chimes and plays music every hour at the top of the hour.

I was beginning to think the guide made a mistake in doing the tour. It was very cold and windy and not weather conducive for walking around. Still, it was good to get some knowledge of the city from a local. As we were walking around, you could see the Middle Eastern influence in the buildings. They were really cool to see.

We stopped at a monument to the victims of the first world war and the statue had an inscription in Azerbaijani and Azerbaijani Arabic. The guide said that even people who speak Arabic aren’t able to understand the inscription even though the letters are Arabic. He said the words made no sense to other Arabic speakers.

We carried on walking and stopped by a statue of Sabir. Sabir was an Azerbaijani poet. The gardens surrounding the statue are pretty cool too. I can only imagine how pretty they are in the spring and summer.

We went through one of the gates into the old city and you could tell it was vastly different to the city outside the walls. It was peaceful. It was old cobbled streets. It was just as picturesque. The guides said that a lot of the restaurants in this area are usually full at breakfast time. They said that breakfast is considered an important meal in Azerbaijani culture. The emphasis is more on breakfast than any other meal of the day. He said people share breakfasts with friends in the way other parts of the world share dinner. It was interesting.

We carried on and we went by a hammam that is now a museum. He said the old town had a number of hammams and they were used by those who were travelling in the Caucuses and on the Caspian Sea. The hammams are a place to go for relaxing and socialising. He said there weren’t many left in Baku but the ones that are still here are still used for relaxation and socialising.

In this area, they also have small statues showing the native instruments of Azerbaijan. They were pretty cool to see. Once you went back to the cobbled streets, you could see a mix of traditional, Soviet, and modern buildings. It was cool to see the contrast. We were stopped by several people who were lost. I had a look at the old town on the map and it’s easy to see why you would get lost here. It is something I would do and would love. You get to see so much more this way.

Our next stop was the Maiden Tower. This tower used to be at the edge of the Caspian Sea but the water has retreated so much that I would say it’s now a couple of hundred metres from the sea. The tower was used as a lighthouse and watch tower. I wanted to go up the tower but it was closed.

We carried on along the main road and he was saying that the F1 passes the hotel there and the rooms can quadruple in price when it is here as it gives a great view of the circuit. I can only imagine how much they cost. More than I probably make in 6 months!

We went into the old town again and stopped by a statue of the poet Aliaga Vahid. He said during the Soviet era, the poets’ works were destroyed (as was the case all over the Soviet Union). There is a bust of the poet here and it looks like a normal bust at first glance. As you get close, you can see the intricacies of it. On the left side, you can see people having fun and playing music representing the good times in his life. You then walk around to the back and you can see people being schooled representing the knowledge he had and transferred. You then walk around to the right and you can see his coffin being carried and women crying and grieving representing his depression and death.

The guide said that in Azerbaijani culture outward pouring of grief is common and the women cry loudly to represent their losses. It makes sense now after having seen this kind of grief on display in the news.

We carried on walking up to a museum and mosque and a good vantage point up the hill to the towers.

We headed back to the starting point of the tour and I asked him the best way to get to the Flame Towers. He said I could walk to the funicular or take an Uber/Bolt. I mentioned I wanted to walk and he said it would take about half an hour and was up some steep hills. I didn’t mind this one bit.

I went on my merry way and headed to get a drink and some food and a quick look at the map to see where I needed to go for the towers. It was uphill all the way to the towers but the views were incredible. At one point I veered off course and started heading back downhill and then I corrected myself and carried on. As I was walking, some dumb white van man pointed at me and shouted at me but I had no clue what he was saying and I just carried on.

The views of the towers were amazing. They are huge and it is hard to say how massive they are. As I was walking up, I got some great views out over the sea and to the Crescent building.

At the top, there is the Azerbaijani TV station, the TV tower, the Parliament building, the Flame Towers, and Highland Park. I went to go find a bathroom as I had already had 3 drops of water and that’s enough these days to make me need to pee. I may have peed against a wall whilst pretending to enjoy the view! It was needed. Sorry, Baku.

I walked up some more stairs to where the Sehidler Xiyabani Mosque is located. This is a small mosque in comparison to some of the others I have seen. It made for some cool pictures though.

I walked along Martyrs Lane towards the Shahidlar Monument. Martyrs Lane is a memorial to those killed in 1992 by the Soviet Army. The monument is also in memory of these people. The views from here across Baku are amazing. As I was walking around there, a group of guys from Bhutan asked me if I was cold. I explained to them that I wasn’t and they said coming from Bhutan they didn’t appreciate how cold it would be.

I walked around here for about an hour enjoying the views and just walking around the memorial. The Soviets are a bad bunch. Brutal to the core. It was nice to see that they honoured those murdered. It is very well kept.

I was going to take the funicular down but it was closed for lunch when I wanted to go down. I decided to head to another vantage point that offered some amazing panoramic views of the city. They didn’t disappoint either.

On the way back to go down to the city I noticed there was a memorial to the British military killed during the first world war and that they were buried in Azerbaijan.

I headed back down the way I had come up and decided to jump on the metro and go to the end of the line. I did that and then headed back to the hostel to drop my stuff off and go for some food. I then headed back to the promenade and walked to the swan fountain. It wasn’t on, but it was a nice walk anyway.

As I was walking it was snowing a bit but not enough to settle. I wish it was enough though. Oh well. Another time. I then went back to the hostel to get some sleep. I didn’t need to be up too early as the walking tour the next day was at 16:00

Total steps: 20,854

Total miles: 9.70

Below are some pics from today

I didn’t get too much sleep last night because a guest in one of the beds decided it was good to talk on the phone at 03:00. I shouted at him to shut up several times to no avail. I told the guy in reception to sort it out and it seems that their go-to thing is to give people fines instead of talking to them. All I wanted them to do was tell him to shut his gob so people can sleep.

I got up at about 10:30 and had a shower and went to have breakfast (stupid pills!) and then I wanted to go to Koroghlu. In this area, they have the Olympic stadium and it looked cool when I saw it on the bus from the airport. I had a walk around here for about an hour. I didn’t stay too long though as it was snowing/raining a little and I didn’t want to get too wet – actually wet at all!

I got the metro back to Icherisheher and decided to have a walk around here and see more of it from the tour yesterday and I had seen a statue that I wanted to go back and see. I did just that. The statue is of Nizami and he was a poet. Not much is said of him on the statue. Down the steps and you come to the Nizami Museum of Azerbaijani Literature. It is a very ornate building and has statues of great poets and writers.

I then headed across the square to get some food, some warmth, and some juice for my phone. I sat in McDonald’s until it was time to meet the guide for this tour.

This tour was of Soviet Baku and Modern Culture. The guide talked about the Soviet times in Baku. It was really difficult to understand him at times. From what I could, he talked about how the Armenians were driven out by the Soviets and then went back to Armenia and the Azerbaijanis in Armenia were driven out back to Azerbaijan and they both said they would look after the quarters in the respective city for when things were resolved and they felt safe enough to be back in the other countries. A lot of this is in part to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabch too. It’s an area off-limits without express permission from the Azerbaijani government. You can be jailed if you go there.

We carried on walking down the pedestrianised part of Nizami Street. The guide said it is almost 3km long and about 1km of it is pedestrianised. He said that this part of the street is usually inhabited by locals wanting to get away from other areas of the city that have been gentrified. He was also saying that apartments on this street go for around 600 Manat per month – this is around £300. I’ll take it. It also has bills included. Sign me up.

We got to almost the end of the pedestrianised section and as you look down you can see the Arabic/Middle Eastern influence in the architecture. It is so cool to see. We got to the end of the pedestrianised section and right there is the Azerbaijan Opera House. It’s currently under construction so you could only see the top of it. There were pictures of it on the outside and it’s definitely a picturesque building underneath the covers. I’d even go so far as to say it is more picturesque than La Scala in Milan. Fight me!

He took us down to the National Library. This is a huge building and is adorned with statues of writers. It is hard to convey just how picturesque this city is. I had some preconceptions that it would be a run-down Soviet city but it isn’t like that at all. It is oil-rich and is able to build such buildings – it seems the Soviet influence passed this city by. Just down the street from the library there is a brutal-looking grey building that is totally out of keeping with the rest of the city. It is also what makes it so quirky.

They have a building here also that is a school/culture centre for children of the state police and military – but it is also open to citizens. You can definitely see the Soviet influence in this building. The large columns, the cream colours. The building also has Soviet red colouring in part of it and carvings of dancing, opera, music, and such so you can tell it is a palace of culture of sorts. It has been very well kept.

After we were done there, we headed to an area that was majority Russian-speaking. The signs were also in Russian here. He said that this area is not somewhere native Azerbaijanis frequent because of the clash between themselves and the Russians. If a local was to go to businesses here and didn’t speak Russian, they would be looked down upon so that is the main reason they don’t come here often.

The tour finished at the house of Jozef Goslawski. He is a Polish architect that is credited with building a lot of the ornate buildings in Baku. His former home here has been turned into a museum where you can see how the elite lived at the time.

One of the things I had read about Azerbaijan was that the culture was still a bit conservative and that while people would dress in western clothes it was rare to see people wearing shorts outside of the summer months. I was wary about this and I asked the guide about it and he said that he sees men who wear shorts as not masculine or real men (but foreigners were ok to wear them). I asked him if he thought that wearing trousers/jeans in the summer and being hot and sweaty was the mark of a real man and he said yes. It’s so strange how some people think.

Once we were done here, I headed back to the promenade and walked along it towards the Crescent building and then to see some of the buildings I saw on the tour so I could get some night shots. I am a sucker for night shots too. After this, I went back to the hostel so I could get some sleep as the tour in the morning was another one starting at 10:00

Total steps: 18,206

Total miles: 8.31

Below are some pics from today

Last night was another night of a lack of sleep because the said talker was snoring so loud it was shaking the room. This is one of the joys of staying in a hostel I suppose. I still wouldn’t do it differently though. It’s all part of the experience of travelling.

I went to get some food (yeah, the pills again. Grrr) and then went to go meet the tour guide. This tour was focused on the old city of Baku. I mentioned to the guide where I was and what I would be wearing and he messaged and said he couldn’t find me. It’s not like I don’t stick out like a sore thumb! I walked to the gate and there was an American there who asked if I was doing the walking tour and I said I was. On the other tours, it was just me and the guide. I felt spoiled on this one as someone else could have the attention.

Right at the gates where we were the guide said the F1 comes past and goes around a sharp curve and that in the last couple of races, there had been accidents. It’s definitely easy to see why with the narrow streets and sharp turns.

A lot of the stuff he was mentioning had already been mentioned by the guide on the first day. Some stuff he mentioned hadn’t though. He talked about the Caravanserais that were built in the old city. These were built as a means of rest for traders on the old Silk Road route and this would encourage them to travel and trade knowing there were places of respite en route.

We went by the Maiden Tower and he said that the tower stored fresh water for the city. He also said that the bottom of the tower had no floors and no means of getting up the tower to where the floors were. He said the way they would get in was to put ladders up and then climb up and pull the ladder up. He also said there was a tunnel to the island out in the sea for the safety of the women and children. It was pretty ingenious back in the day to keep the enemy at bay. He also said it was the place of fire worshippers and they would store the dead there until they were able to bury or cremate them.

There is a mosque just round from the tower that has been converted into a museum. Right across from the old mosque is also a madrassa. He said it is one of only a handful in the country. He then took us up some winding stairs to another mosque that is no longer working. It was cool to see it. Then we headed to the Palace of the Shrivanshahs. The first guide was right though – the old city is a maze that is easy to get lost in.

After we were done there, we went back to the office for dried fruits and tea tasting. I had some dried strawberries and then headed out to go to the funicular so I could go get some good panoramas while the sun was out.

The walk to the funicular was about 15 minutes and I was in a rush to get there before it closed for lunch as I didn’t want to wait an hour for the next trip up. With that being said, I still stopped to take pictures. Luckily I made it to get the last one up before lunch. It was an easy ride. Once you are halfway up and cross the one coming down you go under the road and the rails up the other side start off quite steep. You can see it in the video below. The cost for this is 1 Manat each way. Cheap if I don’t say so myself.

Once I was at the top, I headed for the lookout point over the city and I was again not disappointed. There were way too many people up there for my liking compared to a couple of days ago. I guess it was to be expected with the sun being out. It still didn’t stop me from taking my pictures and walking around. I tried several times to get a panorama without people walking it. It took my 4th attempt.

I spent a couple of hours up here and I sat taking in the sun for a little bit of the time. I was wearing a hoodie and was hot from the walking so I took it off and just enjoyed the cool wind – much to the horror of those dressed up for the dead of winter. I went and got the funicular back down and crossed under the road and headed towards the carpet museum and then to the mall that looks like a flower. It’s pretty cool to see it from above. As I was heading here I walked by what they call Mini-Venice and I sent J a pic and said I bet she couldn’t guess what they called it and then told her and said how much we dislike it when places do that.

I found a supermarket at the mall and got myself a drink and a Magnum ice cream. The ice cream was delicious. I’m sure people thought I was weird for having it in the cold weather. I didn’t care. I headed out to the seafront and walked along that until I got to the lookout pier. Man, the height between the second step and the top step is that of a small child I’m sure.

I went back to the hostel for about half an hour to decide what I wanted to do and what I wanted to see. I looked at the map and saw a park that looked like it would be cool and decided since it was only about 15 minutes to walk it I would do it. The park is called Fuzuli Park. I wanted to go by the 28 May area also as it looked cool when I got in. It worked out well as I could walk to the area from where this park was.

I headed out and had a meander to the park, stopping to take pictures of the area and just enjoying being there. The park itself was quite nice. Lots of green space – as has been the other parks I have seen here. I went there at just the right time too as the sun was starting to set and the views up the hills were pretty cool with the setting sun as the backdrop. It was a really nice walk from one end to the other. It was almost a mile from one end to the other and back. It certainly didn’t feel like that. The views on the way back were pretty cool too. The sun had set by this point and the buildings were lit up and they looked so nice.

At the far end of the park, they have a theatre there and I was able to climb up some stairs and get some good views down the park looking at the Heydar Aliyev Palace Concert Hall. I headed back down towards this and then towards the 28 May area. I had to go through several subways to get there and in one of them, there was a guy playing some traditional Azerbaijani music and some guy singing. I had to be stealthy to get the recording which is why in the videos below you see the floor only.

Once I had heard them play and sing I carried on towards 28 May and as I did I stopped to take a couple of pictures but as I was trying to find the right angle I was followed by a couple of people. I could only assume they were undercover cops as they had earpieces and radios. I stopped to let them pass me so I could walk and find another spot and they followed again. I stopped again and took my pics even though they were close by. They then asked if I wanted them to take a picture of me. I politely declined. I wasn’t going to give these dodgy-looking folk my phone.

I got the metro back to the hostel (I earned this one) and decided to walk some more around by the museum they had there so I could get my movement count up so that I could triple the goal for the day. It only took about 10 minutes of walking to do it. After this, I went back to the hostel to sleep and figure out what I would do tomorrow as it was my last day.

Total steps: 24,439

Total miles: 11.25

Below are some pics from today

Today was the last day here in Baku and I decided that I wanted to reach my goal is 10k steps still but I also wanted to ride around on the metro as I like to do that when I am in new cities (or trams too if they have them). I had a lie-in as I was super tired from the lack of sleep the last couple of days. You know the drill by now: food time.

My plan was to get the green line to Hazi Aslanov and get out and have a look around. I managed to do this and the area seemed ok. It was very residential and not a huge amount to see. The tower blocks here were definitely Soviet-era blocks. They were still cool to see. It was familiar to me from being in Kyiv, Lviv, and St Petersburg. I got a drink to keep my energy up and then headed back to the metro and got the red line back to Sahil.

I got out and then decided to walk towards the 28 May area as I wanted to see what it was like during the day. As I was walking I got sidetracked by the architecture (as I am wont to do) and stopped to take pictures. I then carried on in the same direction and saw another park that I wanted to have a look around. I was on a mission to get somewhere to powder my nose though so that took priority. After this, I went back to that park and had a walk around. The park is called Samad Vurgan park and I saw a Spar across the street and went and got some food and a drink and then went and sat back in the park for about half an hour and then carried on walking towards the 28 May metro station.

I got the green line to Darnagul station and got out here to explore. The area was industrial and mainly oil industrial. The station entrance here is huge and when you walk further away from it the perspective of it gets weird. This one definitely isn’t a soviet era station though – one of the guides mentioned when you get to the stations built after 1991, you can tell the difference.

From here I got back on the metro and went to Memar Ajami to get the purple line to go from one end to the other. This I did. I then got back on the train back to Memar Ajami to take the red line to Bakmil. I got to Nariman Narimanov station and saw most of the people get off so I did too. At this point, I just headed back to Sahil so I could go and get dinner and then head back to pack and relax for the rest of the evening and try and get some much-needed sleep before needing to get up at about 01:15 to get ready for the airport.

Total steps: 12,080

Total miles: 5.60

Below are some pics from today