Thematic excursion "Sacred Lights of Absheron"

Visited sites: Ateshgah Fire Worshippers Temple and YanarDag Burning Mountain. In the summer you can visit one of the beaches.

The temple in its modern form was built in the XVII-XVIII centuries, but the history of this place goes far back centuries - approximately from the beginning of our era on this territory there was a sanctuary of Zoroastrians.

Burning everything that could prevent the victory of Good, fire worshipers led an ascetic lifestyle: they lay on quicklime, hung chains weighing up to 30 kg., tortured themselves in the most sophisticated ways.

For the first time about fire worshipers on Absheron mentions the Arab geographer Al-Istarkhi. In 930 he wrote that “fire worshipers live near Baku.” Here, probably, it was possible to start counting the appearance of fire worshipers on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan, and they could apparently offer their prayers to the fire at the volcano Yanardag - Buryatsya Gora (the next object of visit)

Since the XV century, it was to this time that the first record of the temple "Ateshgah" by the Russian traveler Afanasy Nikitin - here, together with the trade caravans, pilgrims from India began to arrive in groups. Many, according to the descriptions of the time, walked all the way from Northern India to the place of worship - thousands of kilometers - on their knees.

Today it is one of the most visited monuments of antiquity in Azerbaijan, and thousands of tourists are drawn here.