Focusing on Azerbaijan Faig GURBATOV National Coordinator of the “Project for the Development of Tourism in Azerbaijan”, UNDP Azerbaijan at a closer look IF YOU HAVE VISITED BAKU AND EVEN LIVED IN THIS GREAT CITY FOR A FEW WEEKS, IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT AZERBAIJAN IS ALREADY A READ BOOK FOR YOU. CONSIDER THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW THIS COUNTRY PROPERLY YET. YOU CAN COME HERE YEAR AFTER YEAR BUT STILL, IT WILL PREPARE SOME PLEASANT SURPRISE FOR YOU EVERY TIME. Start with the province jan. Your journey will beg in in the Upon arrival at Bak u airport, try desert plains of the Absheron Penin- to avoid the temptation to drop into sula and end in the mountain forests the city, because otherwise, you will teeming with chestnuts , hazelnuts not escape from the welcoming em- and branchy oaks. brace of the A zerbaijani capital. It is The ancient cit y of Shek i is the better to go straight int o the hear t center of the Shek i-Zagatala re- of the countr y, the ancient cit y of gion. It is locat ed 300 k ilometers Sheki, which was once the center of northwest of Baku on the souther n a powerful khanate. On the way, you slopes of the Great Caucasus Range. will have a chance to get acquainted Sheki was in the rapids of the Silk with some natural ar eas of Azerbai- Road, through which many caravans 56 www.irs-az.com traveled for centuries. From here, comes in thr ough the mag nificent off a large knife blade. If they ask you merchants and tra velers brought stained glass windows that decorate to taste a juic y piece of bak lava or stunningly beautiful silk fabr ics and the facade of the building . The art halva, you cannot refuse – you will scarves embroidered with gold. She- of creating these stained glass win- have to eat everything, or else y ou ki silk is light, durable and transpar - dows was not lost - local craf tsmen will strongly offend the host. ent as a veil and was valued no less are still ready to fulfil any order. than Chinese silk. In the Sheki restaurant styled like Wine tour In the city and its environs, there a medieval caravanserai, you will be The Shirvan region has always at- are numerous unique ar chitectural offered an ex cellent meal. Be sur e tracted tourists with its pic turesque monuments, including one of the to try the local cr own dish – piti, a mountains, green valleys and nu- oldest Albanian chur ches in the soup of lamb stewed with herbs and merous monuments of A zerbaijani world, which was f ounded in the spices on low heat. architecture. Shamakhi was visit ed first century A.D. But the main w on- Be sure to visit the confectioners’ by Alexandre Dumas during his jour- der is the 18th century Palace of She- quarter. Only here, can you taste and ney to the South Caucasus . From ki Khans. buy famous Shek i sweets - honey here, he brought many Eastern reci- Winding streets covered with baklava, gentle halva and flour sticks pes for his famous “Cookbook” he cobblestones lead to the walls of the that melt in y our mouth. They are was proud of no less than the nov el fortress and the palace itself . It was baked according to traditional reci- “The Three Musketeers”. built more than t wo centuries ago pes handed down fr om generation The great French novelist was for Huseyn Khan - a poet and patron to generation. They get their unique right: Shamakhi cuisine was, indeed, of arts and crafts. Through the efforts taste from walnuts, hazelnuts, al- unusually rich: 46 k inds of pilaf, 14 of architects and builders, a big pre- monds and honey made fr om types of dolma, 16 t ypes of k ebab cious carved fine cask et emerged. mountain herbs. Strict confectioners and lots of other delicacies . All this All the walls are covered with exqui- (here it is an exclusively male profes- should be washed down with red or site paintings, while marvelous light sion) allow you to taste fresh sweets white wine made in the neighbor - www.irs-az.com 57 Focusing on Azerbaijan Each year, the fac tory produces hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine sold in almost ev ery shop in Azerbaijan. At the same time , the winery itself recently acquired clear features of a r esort. Near the wine bottling workshop, there are white two-storied cottages, and a swim- ming pool, tennis courts, a r estau- rant and a large tasting room are be- ing completed. Drinking wine wher e it is pr o- duced is the main principle of “wine” tourism. In Azerbaijan, pure moun- tain air and mag nificent scenery have been added to it. Here, high in the mountains , ing region of Ismayilli. Sauvignon vines fr om Georgia and there is the village of I vanovka, Ismayilli is a lar ge wine-making revive the ancient A zerbaijani sort which is home t o descendants of region situated at an altitude of of Matrasa. Today Ismayilli runs the Russian Molokan immigrants, and 1,400 meters above sea lev el. The most modern wine-making com- the village-reserve of Lahij , which mild local climate makes it possible plex in the CIS. Production has been is famed f or its sk ilful craftsmen. to make sorts which produce won- fully modernized and stat e-of-the- Celebrations and f estivals of craf ts derful dry and sweet wines. art French and I talian equipment here are visited by hundreds of tour- In the ear ly 2000s, the Isma yilli has been installed her e. The grapes ists to buy unique pr oducts valued winery lay in ruins. Its new owner - are grown without chemical f ertil- by Great Silk Road mer chants and the Ismayilli Sharab Company - had izers, while the cr ops are harvested known far beyond the Caucasus. to bring Saperavi and Caber net manually. The main shopping str eet of La- 58 www.irs-az.com hij is densely lined with shops and workshops of coppersmiths, tanners, chasers, potters, workers of the gar - ments industry, incrustation w ork- ers, wood and st one carvers and gunsmiths. In this remote area, you can obtain a nice souvenir and a real work of art at an affordable price. Medical oil treatment About a hundr ed kilometers south of Sheki, in the hear t of Azer- baijan, there is a small t own called Naftalan, which must definit ely be visited. This is the only place on Earth where sources of medicinal naftalan oil have been found. It does not burn and cannot be used as fuel , but it cures dozens of diseases. and solutions based on naf talan oil, uniqueness and special eff ective- The story of its discov ery is as which will cer tainly help y ou out if ness of its oil. Six of Naftalan’s old re- follows. In 1890, the Ger man engi- you have a health problem. sorts cannot cope with the load - the neer Jaeger was pr ospecting for oil Today, oil pr ocedures are used town already has four private medi- near the pr esent-day town of Naf- in the health cent ers of Naftalan to cal institutions while three others are talan. He rented a large plot of land, successfully treat skin diseases, mus- being completed. hired workers and dr illed the first culoskeletal dysfunctions and a host wells in anticipation of a quick profit. of other ailments , the list of which Bringing the West and the East However, the samples he obtained takes more than just one pr inted together nearly brought the entrepreneur to sheet. In one of the local sanat oria, Arriving in Bak u in the ev ening, his grave - the oil did not contain there is even a museum of crutches. you will see the cit y in the war m gasoline fractions and ther efore, it They were left by t erminally ill and light of innumerable lamps and in did not burn. Being on the v erge of almost disabled patients who began the shining luxury of storefronts. The bankruptcy, Jaeger noticed that on to walk after naftalan baths. city is lit up so br ightly and cleverly hot days, the locals submerged into Studying the composition of that the capital of A zerbaijan shines oil-filled pits, finding this pr ocedure naftalan, which looked like ordinary like a huge jewel today. very useful. oil, chemists came t o the conclu- The palaces, which dic tate the Reassured, the German opened a sion that the curativ e properties of image of the cit y, go well with the th factory to produce the naftalan oint- the liquid were primarily due to the lighting. At the beginning of the 20 ment. It perfectly healed w ounds, naphthenic hydrocarbons it con- century when Baku was rapidly get- burns and frostbite. The new medi- tained. Forming the basis of man y ting rich from oil trade, Azerbaijan re- cine from Azerbaijan created a fu- biologically active substances - vi- ceived the best architects of Europe, ror in Eur ope. Jaeger’s ointments, tamin D, sterols and bile acids , they who built houses on the model of provided with the eng ineer’s article contribute to the stimulation of European capitals. And only the light and doctors’ reviews, were sold as a adaptive functions in the body.