Arif

Inspiration by interesting people, landscapes...

I love nature, good people and traveling.

cheri Sheher (Inner City (Old City)), the pearl at the heart of Azerbaijan’s cultural heritage, has a history of thousands of years and is located in the historic centre of ancient Baku, the capital city of the ancient state of the Shirvanshahs and symbol of Azerbaijani statehood. This unique historic ensemble has been called the Acropolis of Baku, Old City or Icheri Sheher. It was the famous Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl who noted that Baku and its surrounding areas may have been one of the first centres of human civilization.

Maiden Tower - Some historians believe that it was built at two different periods. They think the lower part was built around the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, and the upper part, covered by a stone belt, is assumed to coincide with the Sassanid period. Other researchers say that the tower was part of the Gilgilchay defence system (5th - 4th centuries BCE). Maiden Tower – Eye Tower – indicates a watch tower and was part of the Shirvanshahs’ general defence system, together with the four-cornered Ramana and Mardakan castles, and served as a beacon. It is believed that people sent alarm signals from this beacon-tower to other towers, using fire by night and smoke by day.

Gobustan - Post-apocalyptic is the only way to describe the landscape in Gobustan (Qobustan). Situated just 70 kilometres south of Baku (or an hour’s drive) along the Caspian coast, Gobustan is all rock and oozing mud, scars and craters. More than half the world’s mud volcanoes – about 300 in total – are found in Azerbaijan, and some of them are here in Gobustan. Most people don’t travel to Gobustan for the mud volcanoes – they come for the petroglyphs. Petroglyphs are symbolic and figurative ‘drawings’ made by early humans by chiselling shapes into the patina of exposed rock. Exploring this wicked landscape is great fun; it really does feel like you’re standing at the edge of the Earth out here. A vista of Gobustan is like a glimpse at the end of existence. The stark, almost hostile landscape is a wonderful juxtaposition to the other tourist attraction this area is famous for – a place where people come to ponder the beginning of life as we know it.

Ateshgah - Based on Persian and Indian inscriptions, the temple was used as a Hindu, Sikh, and Zoroastrian place of w