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Azerbaijan has a history as a Silk Road trading post, is home to sites that speak with its unexpected Jewish, German, and Polish heritages, and has an abundance of riches when it comes to art, architecture, craft, food and beverage, and more. Its inviting, tolerant spirit offers the open-minded traveler myriad factors to review the various ways it’s been shaped by historic forces.
“Azerbaijan is a country that has deep traditions of hospitality, tolerance, and multiculturalism. Our primary objective as Azerbaijan Tourist Board is to show these functions through amazing tourist products,” said Florian Sengstschmid, CEO of Azerbaijan Tourist Board.
Here, SkiftX takes a look at a few of the Azerbaijani sites and customs that can be traced back to crucial moments throughout the country’s history.
JEWISH HERITAGE WEBSITES
Today, Azerbaijan is home to a sizable Jewish population, and tips of its Jewish history appear throughout the nation. One of the most considerable is the Red Town, located near the Caucasus Mountains, an all-Jewish settlement of about 3,000 inhabitants considered the world’s last enduring shtetl. It is home to three synagogues, one of which doubles as
the Museum of Mountain Jews. The Red Village is linked to Guba– a historic, multicultural city– by a 19th-century arched bridge over the Gudialchay river. Here, visitors can take part in a Mountain Jewish cooking masterclass with local resident Naami Ruvinova, whose repertoire includes interesting twists on classic Azerbaijani dishes like dolma (packed leaves) and pilaf, and a vegetarian dish called gaylo.
The Synagogue of Ashkenazi and Georgian Jews in Baku is among the couple of synagogues to have been integrated in that part of the world throughout the last century, in addition to one of the biggest in Europe.
GERMAN HERITAGE SITES
An unwary visitor to Goygol may be shocked to come across an abundance of German-style architecture. One of the German settlements established in western Azerbaijan around 200 years ago, Goygol is home to its own German history museum– originally the Saint Helena Lutheran Church– the first Lutheran church in Azerbaijan, dating from 1857. Another must-visit is the Goygol winery, situated on the website of a winery established in 1860, and a cellar with 150-year-old German barrels.
Those with Bavarian appetites can look for the personal dining establishment of Larissa Danilova, where the specializeds consist of homemade sausages and pork ribs and cakes from German dishes. The home of the late Victor Klein, the last German citizen of Goygol– soon to be converted to a museum– is also open up to visitors.
In Shamkir, in addition to delighting in more German architecture, one may check out a still functioning Lutheran church, and consume Brau beer at the Excelsior Hotel, brewed in their own brewery using Austrian techniques.
POLISH HERITAGE SITES
The fast development of Baku’s oil market in between the early 1870s and World War I, a period known as the Oil Boom, brought great wealth to the city, activating the building and construction of an eclectic mix of European architecture outside the old middle ages walls. Much of the architectural reinvigoration in the new city was masterminded by Europeans, including a variety of Polish architects. Together, they developed much of the city’s finest buildings, blending the best of regional and Western architectural traditions.
Among these architectural highlights is the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences (likewise referred to as Ismailiyya Palace), a Venetian Gothic masterpiece created by Jozef Ploszko, said to have actually been inspired by Venice’s Palazzo Ducale. The French-Gothic Palace of Happiness, by the same architect, includes a popular statue of a Polish folk hero, Zawisza Czarny (Zawisza the Black). The Baku City Hall structure was based upon the design by the Polish designer Jozef Goslawski, and is currently home to Baku Executive Power.
The city boasts many more Polish architectural landmarks, including the Lukoil office complex, Union of Co-operatives, Baku Outlet Store, the Institute of Manuscripts, and the Holy Virgin Mary Catholic Church.
LEGACIES OF THE SILK ROADWAY
The fantastic trade routes referred to as the Silk Road left deep traces in the political, financial, and cultural developments of the countries it went through. As one of its main transit points, Azerbaijan was no exception, soaking up international influences in its art, music, architecture, food, and more– all of which are on ready screen today.
Cuisine: Gastronomic concepts spread out quickly along the Silk Road, and Azerbaijani cuisine today makes use of impacts from Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Anatolia, and the Far East. The Baku, Shamakhi, and Ganja regions of Azerbaijan are understood for dishes that combine dough and meat– in some cases with cheese– common in Silk Roadway countries. Cardamom, a delicious component in Indian cooking, is extensively used in Azerbaijani savory meals, however also in standard sugary foods such as shakarbura and pakhlava, also referred to as baklava.
Carpets: Azerbaijani carpets were traded all over along the Silk Road and were highly treasured for their vivid colors, rich patterns, and quality. Today, they can still be discovered in the world’s most prominent museums, personal collections, and auction homes, while the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum in Baku holds the biggest collection of Azerbaijani carpets worldwide.
Silk: The settlement of Basgal– for centuries, a transit point on the Silk Road– is the center of the modern-day silk-weaving industry in Azerbaijan. It was here that the nation embraced and established the innovation of silk production from the Orient, becoming renowned for its passing away and ornamentation methods.
Iron: Azerbaijan’s blacksmiths ended up being well-known on the Silk Road for their home utensils, weapons and armor, tools, and other products. Using raw iron normally brought from Russia and Fargana, blacksmiths of the Shamakhi area would make high-class daggers and swords that were popular in the Caucasus and Russia as prominent accessories among noblemen. Swords known as shamakhiyya were also extremely prized in Anatolia and the Middle East. The custom is still alive today, in the village of Demirchi (actually “blacksmith”) in Shamakhi.
Music: A number of the conventional musical instruments you’re most likely to hear in Azerbaijan are descended from those that traveled along the Silk Road– instruments such as the balaban (a wind instrument typically made from mulberry branches), the kamancha, the oud, the double-reed wind instrument balaban, the round double-faced drum nagara, and the gosha nagara. Other instruments such as the tar (stringed instrument in the lute family), tutek (whistle flute), daf (frame drum), and qanun (vertical harp-like string) can be heard in mugham, an art type integrating classical poetry and musical improvisation that’s also on the UNESCO Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Architecture: Azerbaijan is home to an extraordinary variety of architecture that talks to its welcoming of outside influences: Zoroastrian temples, synagogues, churches and mosques, hammams, fortress cities and bazaar squares. Likewise, the architectural tradition of Azerbaijan can be seen outside the nation, in places such as Anatolia, Samarkand and Iran.
A crucial function of Silk Roadway trade cities, like Azerbaijan’s Sheki, were the caravanserais constructed to accommodate traders and travelers and their products and animals. Today, two still remain in Sheki: the Upper and Lower caravanserais on Akhundzade. Since the 1980s, the Upper Caravanserai has been open to tourists, where visitors can delight in a cup of freshly brewed tea. It’s a fitting tip of the warm welcome and hospitality that Azerbaijan has actually typically extended– and continues to extend– to one and all.
This material was developed collaboratively by Azerbaijan Tourism Board and Skift’s top quality content studio, Skift