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All the new buildings reflect the influx of money from oil and natural gas reserves
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I spent a lot of time on Nizami St, a pedestrian thoroughfare full of shops and restaurants
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Since there is no tour, I have no idea why there were so many stelae on display but not part of the restoration
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Corby and I had met back back when we lived in the Boston area, but we didn't immediately make that connection when we saw each other's name on the tour list
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That curvy building right on the waterfront? Another shopping mall
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It is eight stories tall, and nowadays you no longer need to enter through the fourth floor.
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The last day of the group trip a few of us saw some historic sites in the old town
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The tower walls are very thick, though there are original observation windows on each floor
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In the 12th century it was right along the sea. (Landfill has separated the entire old village from the waterfront.)
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There are competing accounts of when it was built and why it was named the Maiden Tower
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The old and the new of Baku
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Nowadays ease of access is considered more important than impregnability
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I thought this a rather unconventional statue
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We stayed in the old city
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I took another photo by daylight because I wasn't sure the evening photo would turn out
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The national literature museum is marked by statues of Azerbaijan's poets and writers
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The rest of the group was annoyed that I dragged them there, since the fire is not substantial in size
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View from the top of the "mountain"
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The fire has burned continuously ever since
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Visitors dropped a cigarette on the ground in the 1950s and ignited a natural reserve
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The next stop was Yanar Dag, which translates to "Fire Mountain"
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Nowadays one of the flames is still kept alit by a gas pipeline
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The "eternal flames" burned from natural reserves from the 7th century until the 1960s
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In 1969 the flames went out because so much petroleum had been extracted from the underlying reserves
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After 1883, it was no longer a site of worship. After 1975 it became a museum.
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This is why the inscriptions are in Sanskrit as well as Farsi
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The present structure was built by Hindus in the 17th century
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The site was a primary place of Zoroastrian worship between the 7th and 10th centuries
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The Fire Temple was an ancient site of Zoroastrian worship
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After visiting an orphanage, our next tourist trip was to the Fire Temple
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It is famous for its architecture
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Having made our tour of the villages we returned to Baku
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It would have not been a good time to gape as tourists, so we stayed outside
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As we were walking over to visit the mosque, the call to prayer went out
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The work is very intricate, done by hand to a memorized pattern
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So we walked the streets
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We stopped to watch an engraver at his shop
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By the time we got there in the evening most things were closed
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Stopping, of course, to buy bread from Qarabagh refugees that have sold bread out of their tin shack for over twenty years
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The tourist sector, such as it is
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Next we set out for Lahij
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I suspect this looks a lot more impressive when the snow first melts
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Then again, it seems strange to me that people would want to live in a small village in the first place
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It seems so strange that people would stagger up these mountains and decide that this is the perfect place to start building a village
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Russia is just on the other side of those mountains
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It was restored in the 2000s with help from the government of Norway
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Archaeologists date the building to the 12th or 13th century
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The next village we visited was Kis
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A little bit down the way is an old Albanian church building
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Enter through the door inside the door to visit the Albanian church building
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Not that the exterior is without its charms
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Photography is prohibited inside the palace
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Which is a shame, because the interior is more interesting than the exterior
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The grounds were luxurious, befitting a king
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The main attraction is an 18th century palace
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We traveled on to Sheki, a more well-known tourist destination
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We toured a mud house that belonged to a prosperous dentist/barber
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Instead of practicing his English by listening in on the English language tour, our driver would always sit down and use Duo Lingo on his phone
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We stopped at a cultural center that celebrated traditional cultural life in the area
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Nij is a quiet village of approximately 5,000 people
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