STONE TALE OF BAKU

They say even the walls help make a home… They are familiar and strong supports. They promise cosiness and safety. This can be said of both house and whole city walls.

300 years ago Baku was surrounded by a double set of walls on the landside, and a single wall separated it from the sea. Before joining the Russian empire, the city was practically fully enclosed within its fortified walls and surrounded by a deep moat. But Baku has “escaped” from the fortress, expanding beyond it and continues to grow. And the old part of the city, Icheri Sheher (Inner City) has remained a historic reserve, where people come to enjoy the silence, the gorgeous primeval architecture and to find out more about the roots. There are monuments to antiquity everywhere in Icheri Sheher- the mosques, baths and the simple houses. But even the walls that embrace the old city deserve special attention.

While walking around the Old City, not every native citizen of  Baku would think about how many gates and towers there are. In its present form, the fortress wall connects 25 circular towers and 5 gates and one exit. However, the Baku fortress had completely different outlines when it was first built.

It was pulled down as the population of Baku grew in mathematical progression during the oil boom. According to the first census of the citizens of Baku,  held in 1810, the population numbered  only 5,300. The census of 1903, during the “oil fever”, registered 143,000 people, and, by 1913, there were already 214,000 people living in Baku. The territory of the Old City could not physically accommodate the growing math of people. The urban planners raised the question of completely removing the fortress walls. This would allow a solution to the problem of space, and the city could expand. Fortunately, a decision was made in 1880 to presser the inner wall, but the outer wall had to be demolished.

Many people noticed that the ancient emblem of Baku is depicted over the Shemakha and Double Gates of the old fortress.  What does it mean? One can clearly see two lions, the head of a bull and two disks, symbolizing the Sun and the Moon. The emblem used to be read as follows, according to Kempfer, a German traveller in the 17^th century: the lions are the fortress walls which guard the bull, the city inside the walls, under the Moon and the Sun, which stand for night and day.

Massive iron gates that open into the old city are hidden behind the trees, in that part of the city which adjoins the modern square named after the poet Sabir. They were not there initially. They appeared at the beginning of the 20^th century for commercial reasons. The new gates of the fortress face a long street, which was then literally full of shops and stands. It was a big market, and that is why the street was called “Bazaar Street”. The merchants’ shops used to reach and lean against the fortress wall. These were trade stands owned by haji Baba Ashumov. He couldn’t rest his shops profitably, because they were located in a blind alley of the fortress walls and customers didn’t come there very often. And then, the enterprising merchant came up with an idea which helped him save his business from approaching failure. Ashumov decided to break through the wall and open a new entrance into the fortress, through which the people would come in an endless flow. He quickly carried out his idea from his own resources and installed great iron gates into the gap. Indeed, thousands of residents of the Old City entered these gates daily, shopping at Ashumov’s stalls…The walls have fondly embraced Icheri Sheher for centuries, protecting it from the wind, the noise and traffic. They protect it even from time itself, which strives to change everything. One enters the fortress gates and finds oneself in a completely different, parallel world. It is a world on the edge of time, where a little eastern fairy tale awaits on every corner… 

Special thanks to non-professional historian, well-known TV host Fuad  Akhundov for the materials.

Magazine “World of Azerbaijan”, April 2009