Walking tour of the historical center (the Old Town)

Walking tour of the historical center of the Old Town (Icheri Scheher). Guests will see the main attractions of antiquity - medieval caravanserai, Maiden Tower, mosques with minarets, the place "Devil Poberi" and other places where some Soviet films were shot.

If the new symbols of the Azerbaijani capital are the Aliyev Center and the “Fire Towers”, then the iconic building of ancient Baku is certainly the legendary Maiden Tower (Giz Galasy). It, by the way, is associated with a lot of mysteries, all sorts of secrets and legends. Neither the exact date of its construction nor the original purpose is known. According to one version, this tower was built long before our era and served as a temple of Zoroastrian fire worshipers. Even 200 years ago, the fire was really burning here – and the tower was used as a lighthouse. A legend is associated with Gyz Galasa – a young beautiful girl once threw herself into the sea from a tower, not wanting to marry an unloved one. Today, the sea does not come close to the tower - it retreated by three hundred meters. By the way, a few steps from the Maiden Tower, in the ancient building Kichik caravanserai is a wonderful restaurant of delicious national cuisine: local wines, mountains of greenery, mangal salad, kutabs, kebabs, and fragrant baklava for tea. The Maiden Tower "stands guard" of Icheri Sheher - the Old City, the web of narrow streets of which is still hidden behind thick fortress walls, as it was half a millennium ago, when the Shirvanshahis moved their residence from Shamakhi to Baku. The rulers of Shirvan left behind the Palace - with a mosque, tomb, mausoleum, bath. Over the past centuries, it has been repeatedly looted and destroyed, so that its interior decoration has not survived. But the rich stone carving that adorns the facade gives food for the imagination.

Icheri Sheher is not only a museum area, but also a residential quarter. Once in the Old City without a "show-away," it's easy to feel like a lost hero of the Diamond Arm. However, wandering through the streets and dead ends, past ancient mosques, baths and many caravanserais, you will sooner or later go to the museum of the wonderful artist Tair Salakhov, and to the unique museum of book miniatures, as well as to the house No8 on Kichik-Gala Street (Small Fortress), where, slipping on watermelon crusts, Semyon Semyonich Gorbunkov, uttered his famous “Damn’t!”.

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