Baku - A city of memorials

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It’s a sad fact that in any country which has suffered oppression at the hands of another you will find memorials and reminders of the past. Here in Azerbaijan it has perhaps more resonance as these events happened so recently that we remember them ourselves.

We took a trip up to Martyrs’ Alley to see how the events of the early 1990s have been commemorated. That involved a short and exceptionally cheap trip up the city’s funicular railway. The looks we got suggested that not too many foreign visitors make it up there!

At the top of the hill is a beautiful mosque and the peaceful memorial known as Martyrs’ Alley. We strolled along the emotive row of graves where the victims of the Soviet oppression on 20 January 1990 are buried. Each bears an engraved portrait of the victim on the headstone and we were particularly moved by a young married couple buried alongside each other. Their ages were not dissimilar to ours. That January morning Red Army tanks moved into the streets of Baku and opened fire indiscriminately, massacring over 120 civilians. It was the start of the end of Soviet rule in Azerbaijan.

At the end of this alleyway we saw a woman still in mourning. We gave her a wide berth to continue her grief alone and found ourselves at the foot of the eternal flame. The site commands a wonderful view over Baku and the Caspian Sea. Nearby are the graves of Turkish and British soldiers who gave their lives in the First World War. The row of Turkish symbols was quite stirring.

Also on top of the hill are the graves of the fallen from the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Azerbaijan and its neighbour Armenia which raged from 1988 to 1994. We found many graves of soldiers our age which saddened us greatly. You can read more about the conflict at Wikipedia as we don’t really want this blog to be drawn into the discussion. As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azeris from Armenia and Karabakh have been displaced as a result of the conflict so it is a major issue in the region.

This trip made us realise that we live in a volatile region and in a volatile world. Let’s hope the future brings a new era of friendship and peace for all.

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Photos

Statues
The man killing a snake is at the foot of the funicular

Memorials on buildings
They are everywhere