Architecture of Baku

I'll start off by saying I don't know a thing about architecture.  But I think Baku has many beautiful buildings and - especially for those of you reading my blog from afar - I'd like to highlight some of my favorites and share what I think they say about Baku as a city.

First and foremost are the Flame Towers.  Built on a hill, they are visible from many parts of central Baku.  The Flame Towers epitomize the modern transformation of the city, which lights up each night in a rainbow of neon colors.  Some say Baku is trying to be like Dubai, with ever more unique buildings ever under construction.  There are those who feel the Flame Towers symbolize much of what is wrong with Baku - flashy, half-vacant buildings that distract from the real difficulties of the average Bakuian's life.  Politics aside, I think the Flame Towers are beautiful.  I feel lucky to see them every day when I drive home from work and it always brings me joy to see them lit up at night.

Erica and Jeremy with Flame Towers

Flame Towers light up with different images -
for example the checkered flag during the recent
Formula One Grand Prix

The Flame Towers towering over Baku

Also symbolizing modern Baku is the Heydar Aliyev Center.  The pictures below simply do not do justice to the white, swooping grandeur of the building.  The entire building is seemingly continuous curved lines with few straight edges or corners.  Inside is a multi-floor exhibit on Heydar Aliyev, the late president of Azerbaijan who brought stability to the post-Soviet era.  Just to give you a sense of the importance of Heydar Aliyev to Azerbaijan, a holiday on June 15 called National Salvation Day celebrates the day Heydar came to Baku to join the newly-independent government in 1993.  There are innumerable buildings, parks, museums, and streets named after Heydar Aliyev throughout the country.

Jeremy contemplating Heydar Aliyev Center's swirling lines

Side view of Heydar Aliyev Center

Another new building in Baku is the carpet museum.  The museum collection used to be housed elsewhere, but now has a new home in a fabulous building designed to look like a rolled-up carpet.  Azerbaijanis are rightly proud of their carpet-making tradition - Azerbaijani carpet weaving was designated a unique Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2010. The new museum has prime real estate on the Bulvar promenade along the Caspian Sea, where tourists are sure to see it. 

Jeremy at the Carpet Museum

Turning to older buildings, my favorites is the National Academy of Sciences building.  It was built by one of Baku's oil barons during the city's first oil boom at the turn of the 20th century.  The ornate style is emblematic of the oil-boom mansions built at this time, and this building has the added benefit of fabulous colorful mosaics. 

Erica at the National Academy of Sciences

Finally, there is the Heydar Aliyev Foundation building...yes, Heydar again.  This building may look very simple and boring, but it caught my eye from my very first weeks in Baku.  Although it may be hard to see in the below photo, it has beautiful, detailed stonework on the facade.  This type of stonework, as well as the beige stone color, is found throughout the city, and is the architectural style that stands out the most to me as embodying Baku.

Erica & Jeremy hug at Heydar Aliyev Foundation

I hope you've enjoyed my completely biased, totally uneducated architectural tour of Baku!

Mother Russia

With Azerbaijan sharing a border with Russia, I couldn't pass up the opportunity of being so close and not visiting.  We specifically planned our trip for summertime, when the weather would be more bearable.  And after several people told us how beautiful St. Petersburg was, we chose to visit both Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature foiled our plans.  Instead of summer weather, we arrived in St. Petersburg to a dreary, chilly, windy weekend.  The wind was especially harsh near the water...and pretty much all the major sites were near the water. We did our best to forge ahead with our sightseeing plans, but breathed a sigh of relief whenever we headed inland and an even bigger sigh when we got to Moscow, where the weather was beautiful.

Erica bundled up against the wind at Peterhof Palace

Somehow we had this idea in our heads that Russia, and especially Moscow, would be ugly.  I pictured streets filled with ugly, bland Soviet apartment buildings.  If you've never been to a post-Soviet country, think of the Brutalist, colorless concrete architecture of the mid-20th century and you'll have an idea of what we were expecting.  But we were pleasantly surprised to find the architecture of St. Petersburg and Moscow to be beautiful and colorful.

Erica on the Arbat in Moscow

Although we did not go to any shows of the official arts scene of Russia, we stumbled upon several performances during our wonderings.  All were wonderful and very different.  While in St. Petersburg, we were strolling through a park and came across an a cappella men's choral group.  The group performed a fun selection of tunes in Russian, English, and French.

Men's a cappella group in St. Petersburg's Mikhailosky Park 

While inside St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square, we suddenly heard voices singing and followed the sounds to a side chapel where we were treated to a stunning chant concert from a men's choral group.

Jeremy at St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square

And we saw a fabulous brass band performing on the streets of Moscow.  They danced along to their pieces, including a Michael Jackson medley complete with the Thriller dance.  While all this may sound run-of-the-mill to Americans, bear in mind that street performers do not exist in Azerbaijan, so just happening upon live music is a rare event in our lives these days and it brought me great joy.

Dancing brass band in Moscow's Kuznetsky Most area

Another recurring theme of the trip was silly photos.  Enjoy the below selection of the best ones!

On the boat through the Gulf of Finland to Peterhof Palace

On a dinner cruise on Moscow River

Red Square at night

Formula One

Baku recently hosted the Formula One Grand Prix for the first time.  In the weeks leading up to it, the city was humming with discussion of the event.  Some were excited for the activities, others were dreading the disruption to Baku's city center, some turned it into a political issue, and others just wanted to ignore the subject all together.  But there was no denying it was a key topic of conversation.  While I'm not a Formula One fan, I bought my ticket early as there was no chance I was gonna miss out!  Jeremy claimed no interest, but was eventually drawn in at the last minute by a free seat on a friend's balcony overlooking the course.

Jeremy's birds-eye view from a friend's balcony

A favorite activity of the spectators was attempting to take a picture and catch a shot of a car as it sped past.  This filled our camera's digital memory with missed shots, as well as the gaps between cars as we framed the shot and listened for approaching engines to begin clicking away.  Below is the best picture I was able to get!

Did you get the shot?  Can I stop smiling now?

In between the races, there were various activities to keep the masses entertained.  While the modern attractions such as racing simulators and virtual reality games were big draws, I liked the displays on Azerbaijani culture and handicrafts. Spectators could taste Azerbaijani pastries, view traditional dresses, and watch skilled craftsmen creating their wares.  My favorite Azerbaijani handicraft is shebeke stained glass, created by a master carefully wedging in each glass sliver and each wooden separator so the whole piece holds together without glue or other bonding agent.  

A beautiful shebeke piece in progress

To be perfectly honest, a big reason I bought a Formula One ticket was that it also included entrance to three headline concerts - Chris Brown, Enrique Iglesias, and Pharrell Williams.  Before the concerts, I was most looking forward to Pharrell, but hands-down, Enrique was the best.  He was clearly having an awesome time, bounding back and forth across the stage and smiling out into the audience.  Plus I'd never been so close to the stage for a world-famous artist!

Enrique playing to the crowd

The weekend came to a close with a massive fireworks display over the Caspian Sea.  Well done Baku!

There was no mistaking this fireworks finale

Trip to Tbilisi

After having transited through Tbilisi a few times on our way to other destinations, we finally stayed long enough for a real visit.  The most charming part of the city was the narrow pedestrian-only alleys lined with shops, cafes, and restaurants. They filled so many functions throughout our trip:  During the day, we window-shopped in the souvenir stores and art galleries.  At lunchtime, we ate at one of the sidewalk cafes.  When we needed a late afternoon break from strolling the city, we sat down for a cocktail and shisha.  And at night, we checked out the bars and nightclubs.  Like the rest of Tbilisi, the alleys featured a lot packed into a small area!

Jeremy within the alleys of Tbilisi

The other big highlight was the food and wine.  We discovered a love of Khabera winery.  At their storefront near our hotel, they served their signature wines out of huge vats sitting in the corner of the dining area.  You could even get bottles filled for take-away!

Would you like a glass, bottle, or vat of that??

Erica and Laureen enjoying Khabera wine

Many people absolutely love Georgian food.  Jeremy is becoming one of them.  Through a Georgian restaurant in Baku, he took a cooking class a few months ago and learned how to make some of the most popular dishes.  So he was very excited to sample more of them at the source.  One of his favorites is khinkali - dumplings in the shape of drawstring bags filled with meat or vegetables.

Plates of khinkali accompanied by Georgian wine

There is a bit of an art to eating khinkali.  They generally arrive at your table piping hot, so first you need to let them cool off enough so you can actually pick them up.  Then you need to strategically bite into them to avoid spilling the liquidy filling down your shirt.  By the end of our trip, we felt confident we had honed our skills.

Jeremy demonstrates proper khinkali eating technique

As many friends had told us, Tbilisi was a fabulous getaway just a one-hour flight from Baku.  We hope to return soon!

Jeremy with the attractive hillside setting of Old Town Tbilisi

Erica as Mother Georgia

Gobustan Mud Volcanoes and Petroglyphs

A popular day trip from Baku is to the Gobustan area, where you can visit the mud volcanos and petroglyphs of Azerbaijan. This is usually one of the first touristy things expats do here, and it's definitely where everyone takes visiting friends and family.  But somehow in a year of living here, I hadn't yet mustered up a trip to Gobustan, so I finally decided I shouldn't wait any longer.  

Whitney and Jeremy marvel at a bubbly mud volcano

The mud volcanos sit in a desolate, lunar-like landscape.  The day we went was also chilly, cloudy, and windy, adding to the lonely aura of the location.  Besides the forgotten feel of the place - which had no signs directing us to it or any markers once we'd arrived - the first thing I noticed was the sounds.  The ground was literally gurgling around us, gently and infrequently, but audibly.

Erica enjoys the mud volcanos

Following the sounds, we found the "active" volcanos, which were bubbling and runny.  As curiosity got the best of us, we stuck our fingers into the liquid mud.  Contrary to the expectations of the name, the volcanoes were not hot.  Azerbaijan's mud volcanoes exist because of gases emitting from nearby petroleum deposits, rather than from heat erupting from under the earth's crust.  The mud was also fairly odorless, tasteless, (yes, we sampled it), and not noticeably effective as a facial mask!

Having had our fill of mud, we took a short drive to Gobustan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of prehistoric rock engravings AKA petroglyphs.  Visiting the petroglyphs was a bit like being on a scavenger hunt. Significant groupings of petroglyphs were identified with markers, but considering that some of the carvings were tens of thousands of years old, they didn't always stand out.  We were sometimes looking up and down, squinting, or stepping back for perspective until someone called out "Found it!"

Erica at Gobustan

The most well-known petroglyph is of ten dancers.  I had seen this image several times already in Azerbaijan, and was anxious to finally see the real thing.  But as we went around the area and got closer to the exit with no dancers in sight, I was getting worried we had missed them.  Finally Jeremy pointed high up in a corner and called out "There they are!"  Our day trip was complete.

Gobustan's ten dancers

Nakhchivan

Nakhchivan is an exclave of Azerbaijan, separated from the rest of the country by Armenia.  Due to the lack of any land border crossings between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the only way to reach Nakhchivan from Baku is by plane.  Most Western tourists never venture into Nakhchivan because of this isolation.  But the place intrigued me, so I jumped at the chance to join a group trip organized by Natig Travel and Translation.

Ilandag (Snake Mtn) made even more pretty by a rainbow

The name Nakhchivan means "colony of Noah."  Legend has it that Noah's Ark actually plowed through Nakhchivan's Ilandag Mountain during the flood, leaving a visible gash in the mountaintop.  Another legend (or perhaps a continuation of the same one) is that Noah is buried in Nakhchivan.  We visited his tomb, where we learned about the research that confirms this theory.  It was interesting ... but perhaps my expression in the below picture tells you how much I believed it!

Erica at Noah's Tomb

The most memorable stop on the trip was Alinja Fortress.  As we drove up to it, we craned our heads back and could just see the outlines of the fortress walls nestled high in the mountainside.  We all said to each other:  "Surely we're not walking all the way up there!"  But our guides encouraged us out of the vehicles and we began to climb innumerable steps to the top.  It was one of those deceptive climbs where we kept thinking we were almost done, but then the path would curve and continue upwards.  Just as we were reaching the for-real top, we noticed storm clouds moving quickly towards us.  The wind gusted and the skies opened up to pound us with hailstones!  We crouched along the walls of the fortress, trying to seek even a small amount of shelter from the sudden storm.  True to our guide's assurances, the storm didn't last long, and the sun even came back out for me to snap this picture of the fortress before we made our descent.

Sun glistening off Alinja Fortress

As I noted, Nakhchivan shares a border with Armenia, to the north.  The border to the south is with Iran.  Our travels through the region brought us in close proximity to both borders, and being so close to these restricted lands continually fascinated my group members.  While Armenia is not actually forbidden, crossing the border from Nakhchivan is not possible.  Iran was actually within eyesight multiple times, but remained just out of reach.

Erica and Chris, with the mountains of Iran in the distance

I think the biggest impression Nakhchivan will leave on all of us was its natural beauty.  Continually throughout the trip, we were treated to magnificent mountainous landscapes, from snow-capped peaks to rolling green hills.  It was quite literally a beautiful trip.

Mountainous landscape of southern Nakhchivan

Journey out of Armenia

Last week, Jeremy and I visited Armenia.  Even though Azerbaijan and Armenia are neighbors, they are not friends.  If this is news to you, you can Google "Nagorno-Karabakh conflict" for some background.  We stopped mentioning to Azerbaijani friends and colleagues that we were going to Armenia, after it raised eyebrows with the first people I told.  As we were in the midst of our trip, I was wondering what I would blog about, since a travelogue on Armenia seemed inappropriate in my blog about Baku.  But as our trip reached its conclusion, a blog-worthy experience presented itself.

Haghpat Monastery

Along the main northern driving route out of Armenia, we stopped at World Heritage-listed monastery Haghpat.  We appreciated its simple beauty, enjoyed the view from its mountaintop perch, took some photos, and got back into the car. Rather than return via the same hairpin-turn road we took up, Google Maps suggested a different route down that seemed ideal for our continued northward journey.  The road quickly degenerated into a trail and then just two tracks through the rocky terrain.  We were in a rugged Land Rover, so we forged ahead...until we hit a large rock and ripped a hole in the front tire.  

Jeremy located the jack and started the process of changing the flat.  He raised the jack to its maximum height, but it wasn't high enough.  He decided we should reposition the car and start again with some rocks under the jack.  But as he fiddled with it, he couldn't figure out how to release the jack to bring the car back down.  I grabbed the folder of rental car paperwork and was about to call the company for help, when Jeremy used his Leatherman to finally release the jack. Having figured out all the necessary tricks, Jeremy continued changing the flat and we were back on the road in under a half-hour.  We both breathed a sigh of relief when we soon reached the end of the rocky trail and rejoined the main road.

Rental Land Rover

About 30 minutes along, Jeremy started gathering the paperwork needed for our border crossing into Georgia.  He located our passports but couldn't find the vehicle registration card, leading to the following dialogue.  Jeremy:  "Where's the car registration?"  Erica:  "It's in the folder with all the car rental documents."  Jeremy:  "It's not here.  I saw it on the ground when we were changing the flat.  Didn't you pick it up?"  Erica:  "What?!?!?!?!?!"

We realized that when the jack wasn't working and I grabbed the folder to call the rental company, the registration card had dropped onto the ground.  Jeremy noticed, but was so busy with the tire-changing that he just figured I had seen it and would pick it up.  I hadn't noticed it fall out at all.  We knew we couldn't get through the border without the registration card. There was no choice except to turn around and drive back to get it.  Which we did, finding the card exactly where it had fallen out.

Turning around again, we finally reached the border and hoped all would go smoothly and speedily, since by now it was already dark.  We were waiting in the line when a border official walked up our car window.  He said something in Armenian or Russian and then pointed to a building behind us, clearly indicating that we had missed a step in the process.  In that moment, all the frustrations of the last two hours emerged as I let out a loud, long, high-pitched scream right in the guard's face!  Jeremy said later "I kept waiting for the scream to end, but instead it got higher."  The guard probably would have been fully within his rights to arrest me for harassment, but instead he just calmly stepped back.  After I took a few breaths, we continued through the proper processes, and departed Armenia without further incident.  Which is certainly a happier ending than being detained by border officials!

Below are a few pictures of our trip before it descended into chaos!

Erica at the top of Yerevan's Cascade steps

Jeremy in Yerevan's Republic Square

Erica among the barrels at Noy Brandy Company

Jeremy in the village of Dilijan