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Çirax Qala
One of rural Azerbaijan’s best-preserved castle ruins, Çirax Qalas spindly, three-storey keep rises on a forested bluff, high above Qala Altı, a big, modern sulphur-water sanatorium complex. You see the silhouette while driving past on the Siyəzən–Şabran back road but access requir
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Şəbəkə Workshop
The şəbəkə stained-glass windows featured at Xan Sarayı are laboriously made by slotting together hundreds of hand-carved wooden pieces to create intricate wooden frames without metal fastenings. You can see them being made at this no-hassle family workshop (no English) where young
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Fəxri Xiyaban
Since 1948 this attractively tree-shaded graveyard has been set aside as the last resting place for Azerbaijans foremost public figures. Many of the memorials are impressive works of statuary. Former president Heydar Əliyev’s tomb here is the first place that any visiting dignitary
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Ghazanchetsots Cathedral
The restored Ghazanchetsots Cathedral is an impressive white structure originally built in 1868. It was closed by the Soviets in 1920 and used as a storage depot, and was where Azeri forces stored their Grad missiles during the war. It was reconsecrated in 1998. Ask if you can go d
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Heydar Əliyev Park
In the unofficial Top Park competition between Azerbaijani cities, Gəncəs vast new Heydar Əliyev Park wins hands down. Along with a fairground, modern art museum, culture centre and amphitheatre for occasional free concerts, theres what looks like a full-sized Arc de Triomphe. Its
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Stalins Prison
This sturdy brick-barrel tower once imprisoned Joseph Stalin during his early revolutionary days, yet for now theres no attempt to commemorate the fact. Instead the ground floor hosts a rather sparse gallery, the second is unused and the top floor is in urgent need of repairs after
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Centenarians Museum
This modest little museum celebrates the Talysh mountain peoples statistically high proportion of centenarians. Most famous was Şirəli Müslümov (aka Shirali Muslimov), cited as the world’s oldest man when he died in 1973, supposedly aged 168. The museum is hidden away on the short
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Artsakh State Museum
This rather dry museum nevertheless contains many interesting local artifacts, most of which can be better understood by taking a free English-language tour. Downstairs theres lots of taxidermy, archeological finds and ethnographic displays, while upstairs is devoted entirely to Ka
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Candycane Mountains
An eye-catching area of vivid pink-and-white striped hills is commonly nicknamed the Candycane Mountains by Baku expats. Look carefully and you find that the colourful landscape is littered with little fossils. The area is around 15km off the Baku–Quba Hwy east of Giləzi. Take the
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Çaygoșan
One of the most dramatic stretches of the Quba–Xınalıq road starts when it enters a deep, narrow canyon at around Km 34.5. It emerges over 2km later at an uninhabited grassy picnic spot called Çaygoșan, where there are two seasonal tea places in an achingly beautiful valley. A smal
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Medieval Market Square
Directly in front of the Maidens Tower are assorted archaeological diggings at what some consider to be the site where Jesus desciple St Bartholemew was martyred. Set back is the small, former market square areas now used as an open-air exhibition for a selection of historic stones
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Bahram Gur Statue
In a fountain pool in front of the lower Funicular station, this powerful 1958 statue depicts a mythical Azerbaijani hero using a giant scimitar to slay a snake-like water-spewing dragon. It makes a particularly good foreground for photos of the Flame Towers especially at dusk when
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Khan’s Palace
Şəki’s foremost ‘sight’ is the two-storey Khan’s Palace , which was finished in 1762. It’s set in a walled rose garden behind two huge plane trees supposedly planted in 1530. The unique façade is decorated with silvered stalactite vaulting and geometric patterns in dark-blue, turqu
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Museum Centre
This column-fronted neo-classical building was once the Lenin museum. The facade is sternly photogenic and it sometimes hosts interesting exhibitions. The permanent collections are a lovably dilapidated presentation on Azerbaijani theatre and a Museum of Independence , which bangs
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Museum
The town’s interesting museum housed in an 18th-century domed building that has been used variously as a silk shop, restaurant and zurkhaneh (‘house of strength’ – for the practice of a unique Iranian sport based on sufi philosophy). If you feign ignorance of Russian maybe the muse
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Shushi History Museum
Housed in an impressive old stone mansion, Shushis Museum holds an excellent collection of local artefacts. English-language descriptions of the exhibits help to make sense of it all, but to get a better understanding talk with curator Saro Saryan, who will show you around the muse
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Hüseynov küç
Lahıc’s main street is unevenly paved with smooth pale river-stones and lined with older houses built traditionally with interleaving stone and timber layers. Many have wooden box-balconies. The villages once-famous workshops have mostly been superseded by little boutiques, but the
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Hüseyn Cavidin Ev Muzeyi
This little house-museum commemorates Hüseyn Cavid (1882–1941), a progressive Azeri playwright who died in Stalin-era Siberian exile. The museum’s collection is of limited appeal to foreigners but the wooden homestead makes an appealingly calm oasis. The writer’s remains were very
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Tahir Salahov House Museum
Tahir Salahov, probably Azerbaijans greatest living painter, is best known for somehow managing to pack emotional intensity into Soviet Realism. The Baku house where he lived has a good if mostly later collection of his works but theres added interest from some wonderfully naive St
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Winter Palace
Be among the first foreigners to discover the Şəki Khans recently restored yet little publicised other palace. Like a slightly smaller Xan Sarayı, it has its own rose garden and while five of the six rooms are essentially plain, the sixth has a stunning series of original 1765 mura
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