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Fortress
Built between 1830 and 1860, Zaqatala’s Russian fortress is a sprawling affair with sturdy grey stone walls. It originally guarded against attacks from the Dagestan-based guerrilla army of Shamil and later imprisoned sailors from the battleship Potëmkin, whose famous 1905 mutiny at
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İçəri Bazaar
Old Town Qax is centred on İçəri Bazaar, a streetscape where older houses have been given a faux-antique look on a lane guarded by castle-style gateways and warrior statues. The centrepiece is a small open-air theatre thats especially attractive on summer evenings when colonised by
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Şirvan National Park
Around 100km south of Baku, this park is outwardly just a featureless flat plain but it provides Europe’s last remaining natural habitat for wild Caucasian antelopes (ceyran) . To stand any chance of seeing these loveable creatures you’ll need a vehicle. If you don’t have your own
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Pirqulu Observatory Complex
Pirqulu’s one ‘sight’ is the extensive Pirqulu Observatory Complex . The biggest of the observatory’s domes is an impressively large structure resembling a gigantic nose-less Dalek prototype. The complex was one of the Soviet Union’s key space-research centres when it opened in 196
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Pir Həsən
Pir Həsən is a shrine area where superstitious locals queue up to have bottles smashed over their heads. Honestly. It’s considered a cure for nervousness of spirit. The smashing occurs at the back of a pretty view-garden whose focus is the grave of oil baron Zeynalabdin Tağiyev ben
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Mir Mövsöm Ziyarətgah
One of Azerbaijan’s most impressive new Muslim shrines, this complex is topped with a beautifully patterned Central Asian–style dome and has an interior spangled with polished mirror mosaic facets. Most Azeris firmly believe that a wish made here will come true. And when it does th
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Kiş Albanian Church
The brilliantly renovated round-towered Albanian church in pretty Kiş village has been lovingly converted into a very well-presented trilingual museum. It’s the best place anywhere to learn about mysterious Caucasian Albania, the Christian nation that once covered most of northern
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Xınalıq
By some definitions Xınalıq (2335m) is Europe’s highest village. Its upper half retains many ancient stone houses that form distinctively austere stepped terraces up a steep highland ridge. And the whole scene is often magically wrapped in spooky clouds that part sporadically to re
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Citadel
The Naxçivan khans were buried in a squat, brick tomb complex with a simple blue-glaze dome, now over-restored and known simply as the İmamzadə . Directly above is a large graveyard and the mudbrick walls of what was once the city’s citadel . Until recently these walls were barely
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Yanar Dağ
In the 13th century Marco Polo mentioned numerous natural-gas flames spurting spontaneously from the Abşeron Peninsula. The only one burning today is Yanar Dağ, a 10m-long sliver of heat-blackened hillside where tongues of fire have been licking away since being accidentally ignite
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Quba 1918 Genocide Memorial Complex
Skulls and human bones protruding in awful profusion form a key part of this powerfully emotional if politically charged monument. The mass grave site was found in 2007 when digging to rebuild a stadium. Today theres also a startling pair of concrete spike-pyramids atop a subterran
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Museum of Fallen Soldiers
This extremely disturbing and sad museum honours those who died in battle during the 1990–94 war with Azerbaijan. The walls are lined with thousands of photographs of soldiers killed in action and there are displays of weaponry and other artifacts from the brutal conflict. The shee
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Mud Volcanoes
On top of utterly unpromising little Daşgil Hill is a weird collection of baby mud volcanoes, a whole family of ‘geologically flatulent’ little conical mounds that gurgle, ooze, spit and sometimes erupt with thick, cold, grey mud. It’s more entertaining than it sounds – even when a
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Möminə Xatun
Perfectly proportioned, if gently leaning, Naxçivan’s architectural icon is a 26m brick tower dating from 1186. It’s decorated with geometric patterns and Kufic script (a stylised, angular form of Arabic) picked out in turquoise glaze. The mausoleum originally entombed Shemseddin E
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Qala Ethnographic Museum Complex
Historic little Qala is dominated by a faux fortress monument opposite which is an impressive Ethnographic Museum Complex. This open-air park features several furnished traditional-style Abşeron buildings (house, smithy, potters workshop) set amid a wide range of archaeological fin
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İlisu Village
Two beautiful high-altitude valleys meet at charming little İlisu. Amazingly this diminutive village of photogenic old homes was once the capital of a short-lived 18th-century sultanate. Many houses retain box windows, arched doorways and red-tiled roofs, theres an antique mosque a
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Carpet Museum
This new museum on the main road between the upper and lower town houses a wonderful collection of local carpets from the 17th to 20th centuries. Upstairs theres an art gallery.
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Cümə Mosque
Şamaxı’s only real sight is the big, sturdy Cümə Mosque . The original mosque on this site was supposedly the second oldest in the trans-Caucasus. Excavations of its 10th-century incarnation can be seen in the grounds where a little nodding-donkey pump has nothing to do with oil –
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Ateşgah Fire Temple
The unique Ateşgah Fire Temple is one of Azerbaijan’s most remarkable sights. It stands on the site of a natural gas vent that was sacred to Zoroastrians for centuries, though this temple was actually built by 18th-century Indian Shiva devotees. They lived in the surrounding pentag
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Suraxanı Fire Temple
The unique Ateşgah Məbədi is an 18th-century fire temple whose centrepiece is a flaming hearth above which arches a pillared stone dome with four side flues. These flues also spit dragon breath…but only on special occasions, notably the four Tuesdays leading up to Novruz. The fire-
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