Old City of Baku

Feel the stone under your feet first. It is pale, worn smooth, and slightly uneven, as if the ground has settled over many centuries. The walls around you share the same warm, sandy colour. A breeze comes off the Caspian Sea, and somewhere a shopkeeper is unrolling a carpet with a soft thump. You are inside the Old City of Baku, which locals call Icherisheher, meaning the inner city.

This walled quarter is the oldest part of the Azerbaijani capital. For most of its life, it was not part of Baku. It was Baku. Everything beyond these walls came later, much of it during the oil boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. So when you step through a gate here, you step into the original town, the one that traders and rulers knew long before the oil derricks arrived.

Look at the walls themselves. They are built from local limestone, the same stone found across the Absheron Peninsula, the strip of land that pushes Baku out into the sea. Historians describe the town as once protected by more than one ring of walls. Much of the outer defence is gone today. The surviving inner line still wraps the quarter, and in places you can walk right alongside it.

Now listen to the streets. There are no long straight avenues here. The lanes twist, narrow, split, and suddenly end at a doorway. This pattern is typical of old towns in this region. Narrow, shaded lanes kept people cool in summer and sheltered from the wind. And Baku has a lot of wind. Locals talk about two famous winds: a strong, cold northern wind called the khazri, and a warmer southern wind called the gilavar.

Here is a detail most visitors miss. Glance up at the old flat roofs. Traditionally, many of them were sealed with kir, a black, tar-like substance made from local petroleum. People on the Absheron Peninsula were using oil long before the industrial boom. They used it for waterproofing, for fuel, and for lamps. So even this old quarter has a quiet connection to the oil that later made Baku famous.

The shape that dominates the Old City is the Maiden Tower. It is a tall, rounded stone tower near the lower edge of the quarter, close to where the sea once reached. Its age and original purpose are still debated. Some scholars see it as a defensive tower, others as a fire temple or an observatory. Honestly, nobody can say for certain, and that uncertainty is part of its pull.

The name has its own stories. According to one popular legend, a young woman threw herself from the top of the tower to escape a forced marriage. Locals tell several versions of this tale. Historians treat it as folklore, not documented history. Another explanation suggests that "maiden" simply means "untaken" — a fortress that was never captured. Whichever story you prefer, the tower remains the symbol of the city.

Higher up the slope stands the Palace of the Shirvanshahs. The Shirvanshahs were a ruling dynasty of the Shirvan region, in what is now Azerbaijan. In the fifteenth century they moved their capital to Baku, and this complex grew around that time. It includes living quarters, a mosque, a burial vault, and a bathhouse. The carved stone doorways are worth slowing down for. The patterns are cut deep and sharp into the limestone.

In 2000, the Walled City of Baku, together with the palace and the Maiden Tower, was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List. Shortly afterwards, UNESCO placed it on its list of sites in danger, after earthquake damage and concerns about unplanned building. Following years of conservation work, it was taken off that danger list in 2009. So the clean stone around you is partly the result of a long and careful repair effort.

Keep an eye out for the old caravanserais. These were inns for travelling merchants, built around an inner courtyard where traders rested and stored their goods. Baku sat on trade routes linking Central Asia, Persia, and the lands to the north and west. Two well-known examples here are the Multani and Bukhara caravanserais, named after places where their merchants came from. Today some house restaurants, so you can still eat where traders once slept.

Now for a second surprise. Look for the Muhammad Mosque, a small mosque with a sturdy stone minaret. It is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the Old City, dating to the eleventh century. Locals also call it Synyk Gala, meaning "broken tower". Tradition says the minaret was damaged by cannon fire from the Russian fleet in the early eighteenth century. People then chose to leave the damage visible, as a reminder.

The Old City is not a museum emptied of life. People still live here. You will see laundry on small balconies, children playing in the lanes, and cats sleeping on warm stone steps. Carpet sellers hang their rugs over the walls like bright flags. Craftsmen sell copper, ceramics, and souvenirs. Soviet film fans might also recognise these streets. Parts of the classic 1968 comedy "The Diamond Arm" were filmed here.

As you walk, notice how the newer city presses right up against the walls. Outside, you can see grand oil-boom mansions, wide boulevards, and, rising behind them, the glass curves of the Flame Towers. Inside, the scale stays small and human. This contrast is one of the best parts of a visit. You can stand in an eleventh-century lane and still see the twenty-first century glowing above the rooftops.

So pause for a moment, wherever you are standing. Put a hand on the wall beside you and feel how the wind and salt air have softened its edges. Listen for footsteps, voices, and the call to prayer. As you leave through one of the gates, look back once. The pale stone, the narrow lanes, the old tower — this is where Baku began, and people still live inside it.