Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku is the capital of Azerbaijan and that nation's economic and administrative hub. Located on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, Baku is a large port city that has a long history of settlement dating back to ancient times. Situated in an area where Asia, the Middle East, and Europe join together, Baku has been influenced by a variety of ethnic groups and cultures. While always an important trading center, Baku became increasingly important as a world oil producer, and the country's economy and wealth have been reliant upon its petroleum reserves in the early twenty-first century.

Landscape

Baku is located on the southern shore of the Absheron peninsula. This maritime peninsula juts into the Caspian Sea, and its exposed position helped make Baku a famous resort town in the nineteenth century. To the south of the city lies an arid salt basin that extends to the Iranian border. The area's unique geology explains the numerous mud volcanoes and salt lakes that exist within the city limits; in fact, these thermal springs promoted the resorts of Baku during the nineteenth century.

Baku, on the same latitude as Greece and Italy, has a Mediterranean climate and an elevation of 28 meters (84 feet) below sea level. The port of Baku remains ice-free throughout the winter, and snow is a rarity in the city. The peninsula is known for its strong winds, referred to as Khazri (north wind) and Gilavar (south wind); these winds help keep Baku temperate in the summer when temperatures rise to 26.9 degrees Celsius (80.3 degrees Fahrenheit) in August. In the winter months, the average temperature dips to 5.6 degrees Celsius (42.1 degrees Fahrenheit) in January. Due to the tall Caucasus Mountains to the west of Baku, the city has very little annual precipitation, with an average of 45 millimeters (1.8 inches) a year.

People

Throughout its history, Baku has undergone marked demographic shifts. Historically, the city has been host to a number of diverse peoples that often violently clashed with one another. The predominant groups in Baku are the Azerbaijanis (an Azeri Turk tribe), Armenians, Jews, and a small community of Iranians. In the country as a whole, according to the 2009 census, Azerbaijanis are the majority, constituting about 91.6 percent of the population. The city is also home to a large contingent of Russian engineers, soldiers, and administrators, as Baku was controlled by Russia for nearly two centuries (1806–1991).

According to the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook, Baku's population was estimated at 2.432 million in 2023. Islam was the dominant religion in Azerbaijan, followed by a relatively small Christian minority made up of Russian and Georgian Orthodox sects. The official language was Azeri, a Turkic language, though Russian, while declining, is still spoken.

Economy

The economy of Baku is centered on the petroleum industry, which also forms the basis of the entire Azerbaijani economy. For centuries, Baku was known for its oil—the thirteenth-century Italian traveler Marco Polo mentions the oil fields of Baku in his writings—but the technology did not exist to exploit the fields commercially until the nineteenth century. In 1873, Western investment allowed commercial drilling to begin in Baku, and the oil fields soon became massive oil producers for Russia and Western Europe.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late twentieth century, Western investors returned to Baku. Oil companies were astounded by the oil reserves found in Baku's offshore Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli complex that contained an estimated 4–6 billion barrels of oil. Following this discovery, the "Contract of the Century" was signed in 1994 between a consortium of Western oil companies and the Azerbaijani government that allowed further commercial exploitation of the massive oil reserves around Baku and offshore in the Caspian Sea.

In 1998, construction began on the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline to transport Baku oil through Tbilisi and then onward to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The pipeline, which opened in 2006, was exporting an estimated seven hundred thousand barrels of oil a day from Baku in 2017, according to the US Energy Information Administration. An additional pipeline, the South Caucasus Pipeline, transports natural gas from Baku to Ceyhan. By the late 2010s and early 2020s, the city and the country were working on efforts to diversify the economy with the expectation that the supply of oil is limited. In October 2017, the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway opened to connect the country with Georgia and Turkey.

While these oil reserves provide enormous streams of revenue for the Azerbaijani government, the economy of Baku also benefits from the Caspian Sea. The city has a commercial fishing fleet that harvests beluga and sturgeon for the sale of black caviar (the Caspian Sea is considered the source of the world's finest caviar). However, depletion of sturgeon stocks from overfishing has seriously jeopardized the future of the fishing industry. Other industries in the capital include the production of machine tools, petrochemicals, and electronics, and the relatively small tourism industry was boosted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). To further promote tourism, the city began hosting events to draw visitors, such as a Formula One Grand Prix event in 2016 and the Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017. The Grand Prix remains an annual event in Baku as of 2024. In addition, Baku was a major center for Azerbaijani carpets, which are prized around the world for their intricate design and high quality.

In 2021, the country's GDP was estimated to be US$146.305 billion, according to the CIA World Factbook, the result of years of economic growth. However, many critics point to the endemic corruption that plagues the Azerbaijani government; while Baku benefits immensely from oil revenues, the rest of the country still suffers from stifling poverty.

Landmarks

The combination of European, Russian, and Asian cultures have contributed to Baku's unique architectural heritage. In the center of Baku is the walled Inner City, which is where the city was first constructed and protected by massive military fortifications. This entire area was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 2000. The Inner City is also famous for two distinct landmarks, the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and the Maiden Tower.

The Palace of the Shirvanshahs is the former palace of Ibrahim I of Shirvan, a fifteenth-century Persian ruler of Baku. The main palace building was begun in 1411 and the two-story structure was constructed to house the emperor and his entire retinue. Within the walls of the palace is the Divankhana complex, a stone pavilion carved with intricate mosaics and Kufic (Arabic calligraphy) inscriptions. The mausoleum and temple mosque are both considered to be unique examples of Persian architecture and carry many inscriptions celebrating the Shirvanshah dynasty. In 1939, archaeologists uncovered the sprawling palace bathhouses, which were constructed partially underground and include an astounding twenty-six rooms.

The Maiden Tower dates back to the twelfth century. Archaeologists and historians are divided as to how the tower received its unique name, but it is widely agreed that the tower most likely served as a watchtower or a defense bastion against seaborne invaders. One of the oldest Azerbaijani monuments, the tower is huge source of pride for the Azerbaijani people and is even featured on the country's currency. A 2000 earthquake severely damaged both landmarks, and UNESCO has criticized the lack of restoration efforts by the Azerbaijani government.

Baku also contains several examples of Imperial Russian architecture. The Philharmonic Hall, City Hall, and Opera House, all constructed in the nineteenth century, are examples of Russian architecture and reflect the cultural life of Baku at the beginning of the oil boom. Other cultural institutions and landmarks include the Carpet Museum; the Taza Pir Mosque, built in the early twentieth century; and Zorge Park, which features a monument to Soviet spy Richard Sorge, who was from Azerbaijan and died at the hands of the Japanese during World War II.

History

Archaeological evidence in caves around the city suggests that Baku was settled during the Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BCE). However, it was not until the eighth century CE that manuscripts record Baku as a part of the huge Arab caliphate that stretched across the Middle East, Asia, and North Africa. Wars between the Persians, Arabs, and Khazars lasted for over two centuries before the Persian Shirvanshah dynasty consolidated its rule over Baku in 1191.

Baku remained largely under Persian influence for the next six hundred years. While Mongol invasions and other wars with the Ottoman Turks frequently changed the city's rulers, Baku flourished from its location on the Silk Road, which was the overland trading route connecting Europe with India and China. Additionally, Baku's location on the Caspian Sea allowed Russian traders from Moscow to sail down the Volga River, the largest river in Europe, and trade at the city's port.

In 1722, the Persian Safavid dynasty collapsed. Baku became the strategic objective in a series of wars between the Ottomans, the Russians, and local warlords for control of the city's commercial trade. In 1723, the Russian army of Czar Peter the Great seized control of Baku, but the czar's death the following year forced a Russian withdrawal. For the next eighty years, Baku suffered repeated damage from continued fighting, and the Russian Czar Alexander I ultimately won control over the city in 1806.

In 1873, the Russian Empire invited foreign oil investors into Baku. During the next twenty years, the Nobel brothers and the Rothschild banking family invested heavily in the Baku oil fields. By 1900, Baku was the largest supplier of oil on the world market and a population boom followed.

As a major source of oil revenue, Baku was quickly seized by the Soviet Union after the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in 1917. Under Soviet leadership, the Baku oil fields continued to produce oil, but a majority of the oil was used to fuel the Soviet economy. During World War II, Adolf Hitler made Baku and its oil fields the primary objective for the German military in 1942. Desperate for oil and gas to continue the war, the German military's drive on Baku resulted in the decisive Battle of Stalingrad (1942–43), which proved to be the strategic turning point in the Soviet war against Nazi Germany.

Following independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Baku was the scene of violent street fighting in 1994 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, in which Azerbaijan lost territory to neighboring Armenia. The city's large Armenian population was subsequently expelled from the city. Since 1994, Baku has received enormous revenue from oil development and remains one of the largest oil suppliers for the world market. At the same time, the city has often been the site of protests regarding government policies and human rights abuses, with hundreds of people gathering in Baku in October 2017 to protest perceived government corruption. In January 2019, demonstrators gathered in the city to advocate for the release of a jailed blogger who had been on a hunger strike.

Bibliography

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Ismailzade, Fariz, and Glen E. Howard. The South Caucasus 2021: Oil, Democracy, and Geopolitics. Jamestown Foundation, 2012.

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