As was customary, I began my tour of Baku in the morning. My private taxi was ready for me, and our first destination was Gobustan, a place famous for its rock art and engravings. The engravings and rock arts date back to prehistoric times. Gobustan is located about sixty kilometers away from Baku and is translated as “the land of the ravines.” The paintings and rock carvings are almost three to four hundred years old, depicting hunting scenes, rituals, ancient dances, and images of animals like buffalo, deer, and goats. Men with spears and bows are shown hunting in the wild for food. There are also images of ships, boats, and constellations of stars, offering insights into the minds of ancient Stone Age humans.
Gobustan boasts over six thousand engravings dating back more than forty thousand years, from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. The entry fee is twenty Manat, and visitors can spend hours walking across the rocks and boulders showcasing deep and rich rock engravings. The Gobustan rocks provided protection to its ancient inhabitants from chilly winds, making it an area where ancient humans could live. Scientists have discovered burial grounds, caves, and settlements where humans once lived. It is said that Gobustan had human settlements from the 8th millennium BC. The rocks feature both petroglyphs (rock engravings) and petrography (rock paintings).
After a few hours, I switched from my black Mercedes to a brown Russian LADA, which took me to the mud volcanoes. Azerbaijan has the most volcanoes globally, with 350 out of the 700 volcanoes located in this region. I climbed up to one of the volcanoes, where one can hear the gurgling sound of gas underneath the mud. Upon reaching the top, one can see the open mouth of the volcano, with large bubbles gurgling from inside the mud, indicating ongoing activity in these mud volcanoes. The entire region is surrounded by the emerald blue Caspian Sea, providing a breathtaking view around these bubbling mud volcanoes. The short taxi ride in LADA cost me forty Manat, but the experience was worth it.
Undoubtedly, the highlight of the evening was a visit to the ancient Zoroastrian fire temple called the Ateshgah Temple. After grabbing a Shawarma and a slice of pizza, I ventured into the temple by late afternoon. The fire temple was built in the 17th and 18th centuries by Indian settlers and is situated on a natural gas vent, burning into flames of eternal fire. Azerbaijan is also known as the land of fire due to its subterranean reserves of natural gas often igniting. The temple complex is pentagonal with a large courtyard and was a place of worship for Sikhs, Hindus, and Zoroastrians. There are rooms with statues of Ganesh and even stone engravings with verses in Sanskrit. The temple ceased to be a place of worship in 1883 with the installation of a petroleum plant at Surakhany. The temple complex was then turned into a museum in 1975, attracting over 15,000 visitors every year. The entry fee to the temple is a modest 20 Manat.
There is a significant presence of Indians in Baku. Indians from the region of Multan in Punjab controlled much of the trade in the region, and there are other Hindu and Sikh shrines and temples throughout this area.
I ended my day with a trip to Yanardag. This is a place where natural fire burns continuously on the hillside of the Absheron Peninsula near the Caspian Sea. I walked right up to the fire, taking videos and strikingly visual photos. Flames rise up to three meters in the air through natural sandstone layers. I casually walked around the burning fire and prayed for the deceased souls of my ancestors.
It was almost eight at night when we finally arrived back at my hotel. I felt exhausted from my trip but internally very happy to have had the good fortune of seeing such magnificent sites throughout my day tour.