CASPIAN MYSTIQUE116 | July• 2019The elaborate oil residences
include Mukhtarov’s Mansion, a
rendition of a Venetian palace that
now hosts weddings, and the Hajin-
ski Mansion, which houses luxury
shops and apartments. They appear
to have been built with today’s oil
money rather than a century ago.
I can’t get too worked up about this.
The history of a place transcends its
buildings. Late one morning I enter
the Taze Bey Hammam, a traditional
Turkish bath that has operated contin-
uously for more than a century. I find
myself in a hallway decorated with
wood carvings, mounted animals,
photos and other miscellanea. The
place smells like Turkish cigarettes.
I check in and trade my clothes
for a towel. As I step into the sauna
I catch my breath. It’s the hottest I’ve
ever felt. “A hundred degrees,” the
attendant tells me – and he isn’t talk-
ing Fahrenheit.
Heat, a plunge in cold water, and
I’m led into a steam room. Through
mist I see an attendant holding leafy
branches under a fountain. When
he shakes them over me, the water
droplets give a shiver of pleasure.
He proceeds to rhythmically whip
the leaves over my arms and back.
I close my eyes and consider the
hundreds of thousands of men who
over centuries have submitted to
the same treatment in this part of
the world. Rarely have I felt such
a living connection with the past.
When the session finishes, it takes
me a moment to recall where I am.
And who.“IS THAT A VOLGA?”I ask Elnur
Babayev. He nods, then points. “And
that is a Pobeda from the 1950s.”
The vintage Soviet cars are parked
outside the Sirvansah Muzey Resto-
ran, a ‘museum restaurant’ where
banqueters dine in a facsimile of
a Soviet-era apartment. I wouldn’t
think enough time had passed,
but Soviet chic is in style in Baku.
The city’s Intourist hotel, which for
five-plus decades accommodated
government-supervised tour groups,
has been faithfully renovated down
to its façade of grey.
Babayev, a commercial artist, was
in his late 20s when the USSR col-
lapsed. He moved to the US, then
returned to Baku in 2007 when his
father, the esteemed painter Rasim
Babayev, passed away. He found an
eager Azerbaijan, freed from the
control of the Soviet Union, speeding
towards nowhere in particular.
Right now, we’re cruising along
the coast to Babayev’s dacha, a
Russian-style country home. I’m en-
visioning something like England’s
green Cornwall peninsula. Instead,
we’re navigating rutted roads in a
desiccated landscape by the Caspi-
an Sea. When we reach Babayev’s
neighbourhood, however, he steers
us to a handsome cottage. Soon
we’re sitting in the dacha’s court-
yard, ringed by pomegranate trees