Top 26 Baku Attractions

East and West meet in the Azer­bai­jani cap­i­tal. Mul­ti­plied by respect for the her­itage of the ances­tors, they form the unusu­al beau­ty of this city.

Who and why should go to Baku

The orig­i­nal old city, where the “Dia­mond Arm” was filmed, majes­tic mosques, a dynam­ic busi­ness cen­ter with glass and con­crete sky­scrap­ers, muse­ums and palaces — all these are the sights of Baku, which thou­sands of tourists come to see every year.

Boule­vards are a favorite vaca­tion spot not only for guests, but also for indige­nous peo­ple. Walk­ing along them will be long and bor­ing. Espe­cial­ly it will appeal to roman­tics and cou­ples with chil­dren.

The muse­ums of the cap­i­tal are a store­house of the thou­sand-year his­to­ry of Baku and the entire state. They are worth a vis­it for lovers of antiq­ui­ties, his­to­ry and mys­ter­ies. No less remark­able is the local archi­tec­ture. This is a rich fusion of Mus­lim and Euro­pean tra­di­tions that will impress those who can see the beau­ty of mod­ern and ancient build­ings.

Palaces and ancient architecture

Palace of the Shirvanshahs

The for­mer res­i­dence of the Baku rulers was built from the 13th to the 16th cen­turies. On the ter­ri­to­ry of the com­plex, in addi­tion to the most beau­ti­ful palace, there is the inner court­yard of the Divan Khane, a bath­house, the tomb of the court the­olo­gian, sci­en­tist and philoso­pher Seyid Yahya Baku­vi and the mosque of 1441, which is con­sid­ered one of the old­est in Baku.

Tourists can see the East Gate, 3 spi­ral stair­cas­es, an octag­o­nal front hall, and some of the 52 sur­viv­ing rooms. Inside the palace there is an exhi­bi­tion of archae­o­log­i­cal finds made on the ter­ri­to­ry of the com­plex: coins, dish­es and house­hold items. The col­lec­tion of musi­cal instru­ments of the 15th cen­tu­ry deserves spe­cial atten­tion. and She­makha car­pets.

Mukhtarov’s Palace

This unusu­al build­ing, built in the best tra­di­tions of French Goth­ic, stands on the street. Istiglaliyy­at (Inde­pen­dence). The house was erect­ed in record time (1911–1912) by mil­lion­aire Mur­tuza Mukhtarov for his beloved wife.

Due to its unusu­al exte­ri­or, the palace quick­ly became a local land­mark. Tall win­dows, tur­rets and spiers crown­ing them seem to strive upwards. Carved dec­o­ra­tive ele­ments made of stone impress with their detailed work. After the rev­o­lu­tion and sub­se­quent expro­pri­a­tion, the palace fell into dis­re­pair. Today it has been restored, and with­in its walls is the reg­istry office.

House of Baku Khans

This com­plex of sev­er­al closed court­yards is locat­ed in the very cen­ter of Baku, next to the She­makha Gate. It is believed to have been built in the 18th cen­tu­ry. There are sev­er­al res­i­den­tial build­ings and out­build­ings on the site. Dur­ing archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tions in 1986, an ancient plumb­ing, house­hold items and dec­o­ra­tions were dis­cov­ered here.

Maiden’s Tower

This is a sym­bol and vis­it­ing card of Baku. It stands on a rock in the old part of the city. The func­tion­al pur­pose of the struc­ture is not known for cer­tain. There are many ver­sions. Per­haps it was a fortress or a pagan tem­ple dat­ing back to the pre-Islam­ic peri­od.

The height of the tow­er is about 28 m, the diam­e­ter exceeds 16 m, and the thick­ness of the walls decreas­es from 5 m at the base to 4 m at the top. The tow­er is used as a muse­um, with an obser­va­tion deck at the top.

historical reserves

Icheri Sheher

Icheri She­her is the old part of the city, impres­sive with its col­or. On the sides of the nar­row streets, trad­ing shops, res­i­den­tial build­ings, baths, car­a­vanserais, mosques and church­es nes­tled. There was a brisk trade in the squares in the old days. Then the ancient city was pro­tect­ed by an impreg­nable fortress with 25 tow­ers.

The thick­ness of its walls in places reached 3 m, and 5 mas­sive gates led inside. Now here are the icon­ic sights of the cap­i­tal: the Juma Mosque, the Haji Gai­ba bath­house, the Maid­en Tow­er and the Palace of the Shir­van­shahs.

Fire Temple Ateshgah

This ancient Zoroas­tri­an com­plex, which arose in the 17th cen­tu­ry, lies 30 km from Baku, in the place of “unquench­able fires”. Once upon a time, small tongues of burn­ing nat­ur­al gas burst out of the ground every­where.

The tem­ple is a hexa­gon of mas­sive bat­tle­ments with an entrance arch, above which is a bal­akhna — a guest room for pil­grims. Inside there is a small exhi­bi­tion that gives an idea of ​​the way of life of that time. In the cen­ter of the com­plex there is a cov­ered altar with a blaz­ing fire.

It is believed that this tem­ple was built by the Hin­du com­mu­ni­ty. At the begin­ning of the XIX cen­tu­ry. due to tec­ton­ic plate move­ments, nat­ur­al gas went out. The Zoroas­tri­ans took this as an unkind sign and left the place. Today, the archi­tec­tur­al and his­tor­i­cal reserve has become a venue for the­atri­cal fes­ti­vals.

Museums

Azerbaijan Carpet Museum

Muse­um. Lat­i­fa Ker­i­mov was found­ed in 1967 and was orig­i­nal­ly locat­ed in the court­yard of the Juma mosque. In 2014, he moved into his own build­ing with an unusu­al exte­ri­or. The expo­si­tion includes about 15 thou­sand car­pets of var­i­ous sizes from all over the coun­try.

They were made in a vari­ety of eras — from ancient times to the present day. Prod­ucts are made in var­i­ous tech­niques using wool, silk and oth­er mate­ri­als.

Baku Miniature Book Museum

The muse­um con­tains about 8,000 real­ly minia­ture books. The col­lec­tion is list­ed in the Guin­ness Book of Records as the largest of its kind. The expo­si­tion grew out of the pri­vate col­lec­tion of Zari­fa Salakho­va, who has been col­lect­ing curiosi­ties for 30 years.

The pearl of the exhi­bi­tion is the world’s small­est book mea­sur­ing 2×2 mm. All of its 20 pages are cov­ered with micro­scop­ic text and illus­tra­tions that can only be seen through a mag­ni­fy­ing glass.

Azerbaijan Art Museum

About 18 thou­sand exhibits are stored in the funds of the largest art muse­um in the coun­try. Among them are works of art from Azer­bai­jan, Rus­sia, Europe and the Mid­dle East. The exten­sive col­lec­tion is housed in 2 build­ings from the 19th cen­tu­ry, which are archi­tec­tur­al mon­u­ments in their own right. The muse­um was found­ed in 1936 and named after the promi­nent the­ater artist Rus­tam Mustafayev.

Only about 3 thou­sand exhibits are pre­sent­ed in 60 halls (the rest are stored in store­rooms). You should def­i­nite­ly look at a selec­tion of paint­ings by French, Ital­ian and Dutch mas­ters: Guer­ci­no, Loren­zo Bar­toli­ni, Pieter Klas and Jules Dupre.

Azerbaijan History Museum

The Nation­al Muse­um was opened in 1920 in the for­mer man­sion of the indus­tri­al­ist Tagiyev. The area of ​​exhi­bi­tion halls exceeds 3 thou­sand square meters. m, and they con­tain exhibits telling about the his­to­ry of Azer­bai­jan. More than 300 thou­sand arti­facts are stored in the muse­um’s funds, and only a tenth of them are exhib­it­ed.

Tourists are invit­ed to vis­it sev­er­al depart­ments: numis­mat­ics, pre­his­toric, Mid­dle Ages, ethnog­ra­phy and moder­ni­ty. The pride of the muse­um is a col­lec­tion of weapons (more than 2 thou­sand sam­ples) and coins (about 150 thou­sand pieces).

Modern Art Museum

The muse­um owes its appear­ance to Mehrib­an Aliye­va, the wife of the Pres­i­dent of Azer­bai­jan. The white build­ing in avant-garde style declares the prin­ci­ples of free­dom and open­ness. In unusu­al halls that vio­late all the prin­ci­ples of geom­e­try, the works of pro­gres­sive Azer­bai­jani artists and sculp­tors are exhib­it­ed, start­ing from the 1960s. and up to the present.

Sep­a­rate expo­si­tions present mas­ter­pieces by Cha­gall, Dali and Picas­so. In total, about 1 thou­sand exhibits are stored in the store­rooms. The muse­um, which opened in 2009, also works as an active art space. Here, in addi­tion to sta­tion­ary exhi­bi­tions, lec­tures, mas­ter class­es and per­for­mances are held.

Religious sites

Bibi Heybat

The mosque, built in the 12th cen­tu­ry, was the cen­ter of Baku’s spir­i­tu­al life. She sur­vived wars, rebel­lions, polit­i­cal upheavals, but did not sur­vive under the onslaught of Sovi­et com­mis­sars. Bibi-Hey­bat was destroyed in the 1930s. as part of a pro­gram to erad­i­cate reli­gion.

The mod­ern build­ing, sus­tained in the Shir­van archi­tec­tur­al tra­di­tions, appeared only 70 years lat­er. To recre­ate its his­tor­i­cal appear­ance, pho­tographs, ancient descrip­tions, paint­ings and engrav­ings were used.

The only dif­fer­ence that was delib­er­ate­ly made was the size of the build­ing. The remake turned out to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly larg­er than its pre­de­ces­sor, which ful­ly cor­re­sponds to the mod­ern needs of Mus­lims and should sym­bol­ize an even stronger strength of faith.

The dec­o­ra­tion of the mosque is dom­i­nat­ed by white and turquoise col­ors, giant mir­rored win­dows keep the rooms cool even in the sum­mer heat, and the inte­ri­or walls are cov­ered with excerpts from the Koran.

Heydar Mosque

The mosque, named after the third Pres­i­dent of Azer­bai­jan, appeared in 2014 and is the largest in the Tran­scau­ca­sus. The height of the main dome is 55 m, and the minarets — 95 m.

The exte­ri­or and inte­ri­or are ful­ly con­sis­tent with Mus­lim canons. The prayer hall is dec­o­rat­ed with Azer­bai­jani car­pets. A gigan­tic gild­ed chan­de­lier serves as the visu­al cen­ter of the com­po­si­tion.

Tezepir Mosque

Built on the mon­ey of patrons in 1914, the mosque was closed short­ly after the Octo­ber Rev­o­lu­tion. The new gov­ern­ment used the build­ing for house­hold needs. In 2009 the com­plex was com­plete­ly restored. Now its facade is dec­o­rat­ed with inscrip­tions made of gold, inside the walls are cov­ered with intri­cate pat­terns, the win­dows are dec­o­rat­ed with carved mahogany frames.

The main dome is made of mar­ble. The huge men’s prayer hall is dec­o­rat­ed with 52 chan­de­liers. The female one is infe­ri­or in size, but this dis­ad­van­tage is com­pen­sat­ed by the rich decor of pis­ta­chio wood.

Juma Mosque

The mosque, locat­ed in the his­tor­i­cal part of the city, stands on the site of an ancient Zoroas­tri­an tem­ple. The first build­ing was erect­ed at the begin­ning of the 14th cen­tu­ry, but was destroyed by a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter in the 17th cen­tu­ry. The rebuilt mosque burned down after some time. In 1899, the mil­lion­aire and phil­an­thropist Dada­shev gave mon­ey for its recon­struc­tion.

The carved facade of the hexag­o­nal build­ing is rich­ly dec­o­rat­ed with stone and wood­en pat­terns; a large door leads into the room. The inner vaults of the halls are dec­o­rat­ed with col­or­ful mosaics, and suras are tra­di­tion­al­ly placed on the walls.

Mohammed Mosque

This mosque is known as Synyk-kala or “dam­aged tow­er”. It is locat­ed in the old part of the city. This is the first build­ing in Baku, which indi­cates the year of con­struc­tion and its author. Thanks to the inscrip­tion above the door­way, you can find out that the mosque in the XI cen­tu­ry. built by Mohammed, son of Abu Bekr.

The facade of the build­ing is dec­o­rat­ed with lines from the Koran, bizarre lat­tices on the win­dows and a sta­lac­tite cor­nice on the bal­cony of the muezzin. The pow­er­ful tow­er of the minaret is made of hewn stone, but over time its upper part has col­lapsed. Recon­struc­tion work was car­ried out in the XIX cen­tu­ry. How­ev­er, the mas­ter obvi­ous­ly did not try very hard — the stone blocks used in the repair dif­fer in size from the ancient orig­i­nal.

Cathedral of the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women

The cathe­dral was built at the begin­ning of the 20th cen­tu­ry and got its name in hon­or of the women who came to the tomb of Jesus Christ to per­form a rit­u­al with the help of incense. The Sovi­et author­i­ties closed the tem­ple as alien to a new life free from reli­gion. It was used as a sta­ble, a gym, a ware­house, which affect­ed the con­di­tion of the build­ing. The cathe­dral received the great­est dam­age in 1990 dur­ing the Jan­u­ary events. Restora­tion work was car­ried out only in 2003.

The icon of the Caspi­an and Tikhvin Moth­er of God and the ark with the relics of the Apos­tle Bartholomew, the patron saint of Baku, are kept in the cathe­dral.

Parks and recreation

upland park

The city park appeared in Baku in the 1930s. It received its sonorous name due to the hill on which it is locat­ed.

In addi­tion to a vast green area, the park has view­ing plat­forms, the Shekhidl­yar Mosque and a memo­r­i­al com­plex ded­i­cat­ed to those who died as a result of hos­til­i­ties in Jan­u­ary 1990.

Seaside boulevard

This is a vis­it­ing card of Baku, where every tourist must vis­it. Muse­ums, restau­rants, cafes, attrac­tions and oth­er enter­tain­ment are con­cen­trat­ed here. The boule­vard is well-groomed, replete with green­ery, and the mar­ble steps at the coastal strip lead to the very edge of the sea.

Among its main attrac­tions, it is worth not­ing a 75-meter para­chute tow­er in the shape of an oil rig. Built in the 1930s, it has been restored and shines with beau­ti­ful illu­mi­na­tion in the evening.

In 2007, a musi­cal foun­tain appeared in the Pri­morsky Boule­vard park. Every evening, jets of water soar up and whirl in a dance, accom­pa­nied by light music. Sea­side Park is divid­ed accord­ing to all the rules of land­scape design. Many plants and trees grow in it, among them there are exot­ic spec­i­mens: baob­a­bs and cac­ti.

Lit­tle Venice is anoth­er pop­u­lar park attrac­tion. This is a net­work of arti­fi­cial canals with grace­ful gon­do­las brought from Italy. Voy­age on them will be short-lived, but mem­o­rable. The length of the canal is 1350 m, the depth is 1.3 m. Swim­ming takes place along alleys and lawns, under styl­ized bridges.

Fountain Square

Locat­ed in the heart of Baku, Foun­tain Square is con­sid­ered one of the most beau­ti­ful in the cap­i­tal. There are many foun­tains of var­i­ous shapes, and the land­scape is com­ple­ment­ed by shady trees, gaze­bos, bench­es and flower beds. Along the perime­ter of the square there are build­ings with the sta­tus of archi­tec­tur­al mon­u­ments and his­tor­i­cal objects.

Garden named after Khagani

Built in the sec­ond half of the 19th cen­tu­ry, the Kha­gani gar­den is one of the old­est in Baku. It received its name in hon­or of the clas­sic poet of Azer­bai­jani lit­er­a­ture. The ter­ri­to­ry of the park is approx­i­mate­ly 1 hectare. Alleys, immersed in the shade of trees, con­verge in the cen­tral part — there is a foun­tain and a sculp­tur­al com­po­si­tion.

Modern landmarks

flame towers

The unusu­al archi­tec­tur­al com­plex Flame Tow­ers or Flame Tow­ers is a sym­bol of mod­ern Baku and its new achieve­ments. Three build­ings 140, 160 and 190 meters high are vis­i­ble from any­where in the cap­i­tal. When the sun sets, screens on the facades turn on, which broad­cast the con­tin­u­ous move­ment of the flame. Sky­scrap­ers resem­ble torch­es against the dark­en­ing sky — an impres­sive sight.

crystal hall

In 2012, Azer­bai­jan host­ed the Euro­vi­sion Song Con­test. To impress guests and par­tic­i­pants with its breadth and scope, a new futur­is­tic con­cert hall equipped with the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy was built in Baku. The facade of the build­ing looks like the face of a crys­tal. It shines espe­cial­ly bright­ly in the evening hours, when the illu­mi­na­tion is lit.

Heydar Aliyev Center

The Pres­i­den­tial Cul­tur­al Cen­ter was inau­gu­rat­ed in 2012. The author of the project was Zaha Hadid, a leg­end in the world of design and archi­tec­ture. Two years lat­er, the Hey­dar Aliyev Cen­ter was rec­og­nized as the best build­ing in the world. It hous­es a con­gress hall, restau­rants, an exhi­bi­tion hall, a muse­um, cafes and offices.

Ferris wheel

Baku Eye is the offi­cial name of the Baku Fer­ris wheel. It con­sists of 30 gon­do­las, designed for 8 peo­ple. Cab­ins rise to a height of 60 m, from where a panoram­ic view of the cap­i­tal opens. The time for a full turn of the wheel is about 30 min­utes, depend­ing on the speed of board­ing pas­sen­gers.

Funicular

It is both a land­mark and a means of trans­porta­tion in a cap­i­tal whose land­scape is defined by hills. The length of the rail is 455 m. The trail­er moves almost silent­ly, while pic­turesque views open up to the gaze of pas­sen­gers: slopes over­grown with dense forests, the blue expanse of the sea, res­i­den­tial areas and sky­scrap­ers.