History of Baku - Appearance

Appearance

According to a stone inscription, the city’s first fortified walls were erected by Shirvanshah Manuchehr II. The fortifications that once surrounded Baku were repeatedly destroyed due to invasions. These fortifications were composed of multiple lines of walls interspersed with moats that connected to channels leading to the Caspian Sea. These fortifications featured drawbridges which were raised at twilight. In 1078 the Broken Tower (Sınıq-Qala), the city’s first mosque, was built. The construction of the city’s historical core, named the Inner City, began in the 14th century.

For many centuries, Baku engaged in trade with its neighbors. Trade was made possible by caravan routes and sea ways. Bukhara and Indian caravan-sheds within the Inner City testified that in the 14th – 16th centuries, Baku conducted trade with India and Central Asia.

One of the first prominent Baku architects, Kasum-bek Gadjibababekov, is credited for the city’s layout which was admired by Russian and European planners. Due to the city’s topography, streets in Baku at this time were laid in steps. The unpaved streets were sometimes shrouded in clouds of dust for weeks at a time when the northern wind, known as Khazri, or the southern wind, Gilavar, blew.

The Russian traveller I. Beryozin, who visited Baku in the middle of the 19th century described the city streets as "...narrow and entangled, that after a month in Baku I did not know, where a street began and where it ended."

In 1859, the construction of Baku’s city port began, and, in 1861, A. Ulski, Captain-lieutenant of the Russian Fleet, took the city’s first photograph. Drainage was installed in 1878. British civil engineer William Heerlein Lindley, who worked in the city from 1899 until his death in 1917, coordinated the building of Baku's water supply system.

On 3 May (April 21 O.S.), 1896, the notable Nobel family laid the foundation stone for the city's Lutheran church. It was one of the few places of worship that was not demolished during Stalin's rule. Since then its primary use has been for concerts—the church houses one of the few pipe organs in Baku. A Molokan meeting-house functions on the so-called Molokanka, near the former Chapayev Street.

In 1898, German civil engineer Nicholas von der Nonne developed the first professional plan for the growth of Baku. In the early 1960s, during the term of Baku mayor Alish Lemberanski, the city’s micro-regions (suburbs) were created outside of Baku, and old, crumbling buildings gave way to Soviet-style architecture. Narrow streets were widened into boulevards to accommodate more vehicles. In April 1960, as part of the festivities during the 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union, a walking tour was arranged to show the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev a brand-new walkway made of colorful blue and pink concrete slabs. In fact, Khrushchev never saw the walkway, but typical buildings of this period are still called khruschovki, from Russian: хрущëвки.

Recently, the current mayor of Baku, Hajibala Abutalybov, has been criticized for the city's decline in appearance.

Baku has also announced its intentions to bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. Baku was the host city for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012.