MOST CITIES value sturdy, handsome
buildings over dilapidated structures,
but I’m wondering if Baku’s mania
for restoration has gone too far.
“The problem,” says a young woman
named Ayan, “is that you can no
longer tell what is new and what is
old.” The Muhammad Mosque has
been scrubbed to its original golden
colour, wiping away centuries of
history. The historic mansions, too—
built in the 1800s with money made
from oil, which has been extracted
from around Baku since the third
century—have been scoured to a
generic cleanliness.
“Oil made Baku,” Zohrab
Huseynov, a mechanical engineer
who works in the petroleum
industry, tells me one evening as we
share a cab. “The reason Baku is bignew tourists enjoying a
youthful adventure. They’re
locals conversing in Russian
and Azeri and enjoying
the fruit of their nation’s
burgeoning prosperity.
Over the centuries,
Azeris have survived by
adapting. They bent to the
will of the Persians, fell in
line under the Russians,
yet never quite submitted.
“The best way to retain
our identity, that core
of language, music, and
cuisine that differentiates
us from our neighbours,
was through flexibility,”
explains history enthusiast Fuad
Akhundov. This led to tolerance. It’s
no accident that three distinct Jewish
communities have survived pashas,
caliphs, and commissars.
Despite Ibrahimova’s fears, Baku
could never become Dubai. This is
an ancient place. Early one morning
I wander through the walled Inner
City, much of which was built
between the 12th and 16th centuries.
I gaze at the Muhammad Mosque and
its minaret, which became known as
the Broken Tower after it was bombed
by Russian warships in the 1720s (and
later rebuilt). When a class of preteens
in blue and white uniforms file past,
I realise that the labyrinth of streets
and alleys around me is more than a
World Heritage tourist attraction. It’s
a living neighbourhood.
JULY 2019 • 89The city skyline frames Baku Bay on the Caspian Sea