We landed in Baku, Azerbaijan and took the airport bus and metro towards our hotel in the Old City.
Baku was developed because of oil. The first oil wells were constructed here, and in the early 1900’s, Baku was producing over 50% of the world’s oil. Baku is on the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland lake, and most of the oil production is now from offshore wells.
The flame towers are now the iconic image of Baku.
The Maiden’s tower is probably nothing to do with a maiden, although those myths of a love-struck maiden exist. It’s more likely that it’s a mis-translation and that the meaning is more like virgin in the sense that it was never captured.
The old city was originally protected by three walls, but only one still largely exists. Between the walls were a moat of water and then a moat of burning oil. Very handy to have a large source of oil nearby!
When they were renovating the Maiden’s tower, they relocated the swift birds nests to the side of this building – arranged in the shape of swifts. The guide then tried to say they care about the birds and then pointed out the stray cats houses they built just next to them.
Azerbaijan was quite enlightened, and one of the first democracies in the world. There was a muslim girls school here when girls in many other parts of the world weren’t provided education. Women also had the vote here before Britain or the US.
