|
|
 |
 |
|
 | | The Old City
Changing Times
Changing Images |
|
|
| By Jill Sparandio |
|
One of the best views of Baku's Old City is from the windows of the artists' studios now occupying the rooms tucked under the roof of the building facing BakSoviet railway station. To reach these studios you climb the great staircase of what was once a grand hotel and then trust your luck on the rickety iron stairs that take you up to the space under the eaves that once were the servants' quarters. The studios, as well as providing a stunning view of the walls and rooftops of the Old City sloping down to the Caspian, offer an excellent introduction to the range of artistic creativity in Baku - and many of the canvases on show or stored here take their inspiration from the history layered beneath the artists' windows.
If you walk through Artists Alley, on your way through Fountain Square to the walls and city gates, a humbler artistic rendition of the Old City is also available. Attractive and skilfully produced watercolours of old city views, some embellished with historical touches, are produced for the tourist market - and being reasonably priced, sell well as enduring mementos of a visit. Once through the gates and into the city, small galleries tucked away down passages and through courtyards provide the art collector with hours of happy browsing - their owners delighted to sit and discuss artists and the current art scene over leisurely cups of tea.
But art is just one aspect of the old city and there is much more to lure the tourist or expatriate worker to its twisting streets and tiny shops. Its long and bloody history saw a tiny trading settlement develop on the edge of a wide and sheltered bay on the Caspian. This was a place where the ground oozed oil, and boats plying the coast and camel caravans crossing the central Asian deserts could stop for water. This was a settlement dominated by a unique and enormous tower - the Maiden's Tower - still teasing historians with the secrets of its origins and use.
The visitor to the Tower (and who can resist the chance to climb to the top and gaze down on the sea front and markets below) can follow the development of the city in a series of modelled panoramas as they enter. The settlement grew in both size and importance to become the walled regional headquarters of the Shirvan Shahs. Their palace, with bathhouses fed by water channelled down from the hills above, still dominate the high point of the town. Another type of artistry has gone into the restoration of this building undertaken with Italian assistance - as stonemasons and painters have rebuilt the elaborate stone tracery and decoration of the interior of the palace. The sound of fountains and scent of roses in summer suggests the indolence and luxury enjoyed by its inhabitants in days past.
By the time of the oil boom, travellers describe a rabbit warren of a city, with the dirt and squalor, a seething street life of buying and selling, the animals and people of a flourishing Middle Eastern city of this time. As the rich moved out to build grander houses elsewhere, new ethnic groups moved in, some of them impoverished workers in the oilfields. Neighbourhoods were tight knit communities where everyone knew everyone else, and strangers dared not enter. Ethnic tensions, and changing political allegiances saw the city streets piled with thousands of bodies and quite literally running with blood.
That there is still an old city to visit at all is a fortunate twist of fate. In Soviet times its image was regarded as obsolete by a regime intent on building modern, planned and healthy dwellings. Stalin issued orders for it to be razed - but was fortunately convinced that it could be 'redeveloped' as a record to a past that would fit the soviet historical mindset. Walls were rebuilt, buildings repaired and subdivided into flats, mosques and synagogues closed or converted to social clubs.
Today, the peace of the Old City belies its turbulent past. Once the hub of life in Baku, full of noise and life, now it is a quiet escape from the traffic and bustle that surrounds it. Tourists can roam its streets and alleys, shady and cool in the heat of summer, getting glimpses through an open gate of vine covered courtyards where the washing is hung to dry and the carpets air on the balconies. A pleasant and leisurely meal can be enjoyed at white clothed tables through the great wooden doors of the renovated caravanserais or on the roof of a small hotel. Hours can be spent searching for antiques and carpets in the tiny shops that line the main streets.
Once again, the old city has reinvented itself, changing its image to allow it to live and thrive in a new era. Where once the rich moved out, now land and buildings are eagerly sort by diplomats and international organisations and by the new elite of newly capitalist Azerbaijan. The government once again seeks to protect, restore and rebuild the old with a growing appreciation of the importance of the tourist industry worldwide. The face of the Old City may change, but its heart still beats strong.
|
| |
|
|
