"John's Middle East Page" Middle East by johnortega

I have been to Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbijian its a fabulous area to visit for food and scenery, photo is in Baku of Ancient Tower.I was in Baku in April 1999 to visit a pharmaceutical distributor. Azerbijian food is great, plenty of Shaslik, its a shisk kabob, and fresh vegetables and stergeon fish, this is one of the many places you can get fresh Caviar from the Caspian cheap.Baku is a capital of Azerbaijan and one of the largest cities in the republic. It is located on the western coast of the Caspian sea. The centre of Baku is an old town that is also a fortress. This section is picturesque due to its maze of narrow alleys and ancient buildings, some of them are dated from the 11th century. I recommend staying at the new Sheraton located next to MacDonalds. Modern Baku spreads out from the walls, its streets and buildings rising up hills that rim the Baku bay. The present Baku is the large cultural and educational centre in Azerbaijan, its basis of economics is the oil production.aku or Baky, capital and largest city of Azerbaijan. The population is 1,149,000 (1990 estimate). The city is close to major petroleum fields near the border with Iran, and oil refining is its chief industry. Petroleum was extracted in the Baku region as early as the 8th century. The first historical reference to Baku dates from AD 885, although archaeological evidence indicates a settlement there several centuries before By the 11th century AD, Baku was in the possession of the Shirvan-Shahs, who made it their capital in the 12th century, although for a period in the 13th and 14th centuries it came under the sway of the Mongols. In 1723 Peter I the Great captured Baku, but it was returned to Persia in 1735; Russia captured the town finally in 1806. After the Soviet victory over the republic, the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic was declared in 1922, with Baku as its capital. Baku served as the capital of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic from 1920 to 1922 and from 1936 to 1991. In 1991 Azerbaijan became an independent republic (See Azerbaijan Chronology).
The core of present-day Baku is the old town, or fortress, of Icheri-Shekher. Most of the walls, strengthened after the Russian conquest in 1806, survive, as does the 90-ft (27-m) tower of Kyz-Kalasy (Maiden?s Tower, 12th century). The old town is highly picturesque, with its maze of narrow alleys and ancient buildings. These include the palace of the Shirvan-Shahs, now a museum, the oldest part of which dates from the 11th century. Also of the 11th century is the Synyk-Kala Minaret and Mosque (1078-79). Other notable historic buildings are the law court (Divan-Khan), the Dzhuma-Mechet Minaret, and the mausoleum of the astronomer Seida Bakuvi.
Around the walls of the fortress, the regular streets and imposing buildings of modern Baku rise up the slopes of the amphitheatre of hills surrounding the bay. Along the waterfront an attractive park has been laid out. Most industrial plants are located at the eastern and southwestern ends of the city. Greater Baku, divided into 11 districts, encompasses almost the entire Apsheron Peninsula and 48 townships. Among these are townships on islands off the tip of the peninsula and another built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, 60 mi (100 km) from Baku.
The basis of Baku?s economy is petroleum. The presence of oil has been known since the 8th century, and by the 15th century oil for lamps was obtained from surface wells. Modern commercial exploitation began in 1872, second only to Ploesti in Romania. The Baku oil field at the beginning of the 20th century was the largest in the world, and it remained the largest Soviet field until the 1940s. Today much of the oil has been exhausted, and, although some wells remain in the city itself. However, new oil resources were found in the sea area near Apsheron. Azerbaijan is well placed to become a major additional source of oil supplies for Europe in the next century. A critical element of Azerbaijan?s long term success will be the availability of export routes to transport the crude to world markets.

HISTORY
The present day citizens of Azerbaijan are the heirs of a rich history, the successors of a long progression of cultures and civilizations. Situated on the western coast of the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan occupies one of the Asian continent?s strategic crossroads between East and West. Given this geographic reality, many king doms and empires, and such famous warriors as Persia?s Cyrus the Great, the Roman General Pompey, Alexander the Great, Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, have fought to assert control over the region. Archaeologists date the first human settlements in pres ent day Azerbaijan to the Stone Age. Prehistoric cave dwellings have been excavated throughout Azerbaijan, one of the more important being the excavations at Gobustan, famous for its rock paintings. Ethnically and linguistically, the Azerbaijani people are descended from the nomadic Turkish tribes that mi grated west across Transcaucasia into present day Tur key more than one thousand years ago. Today, Azerbaijan is home to more than 70 different ethnic groups, including Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Jews, Russians, Armenians, Lezghins, and many others. Historically, Azerbaijan was divided into two parts: the northern and the southern. Northern Azerbaijan cov ered what is essentially the territory of the present day Republic of Azerbaijan, while southern Azerbaijan covered an area in what is now northern Iran. The roots of present day Azerbaijan trace back to the fourth century B.C., with the emergence of the two kingdoms of Caucasian Albania in the north, and the Atropatan in the south. The latter takes its nairne from its founder, Atropat, a satrap of Alexander of Macedo nia. In fact, many historians believe the word ?Azerbaijan? itself derives from Atropatan. By the second century A.D., Caucasian Albania had developed into a major regional power. Ancient litera ture describes Caucasian Albania as a separate state with a diverse economic base. Its borders were essen tially the borders of present day Azerbaijan, and in cluded the regions of Nakhchivan and Daghlig-Gar mountains, abagh. By the third century, numerous cities flourished as trade, artistic, or administrative centers, among them Baku, Barda, Ganja and Nakhchivan. The Kingdom of Caucasian Albania was home to the first Christian communities in the region. By the fourth century, Chris tianity had become the kingdom?s principal religion. While formally a vassal to the state of Sasanian Iran, Caucasian Albania enjoyed a large degree of autonomy and was virtually an independent state. During the seventh century, Caucasian Albania fell to the Arab Caliphate, leading to the Islamization of the region. The majority of people converted to Islam and the influence of Islamic culture exerted itself through out the kingdom. Throughout these centuries, the area witnessed succes sive waves of migrations of nomadic Turkish tribes and confederations, including the Huns and the Khazars. The Azerbaijani Turks today accept both these Turkish nomads and the Albanians as their ancestors. By the ninth century, the Albanian Kingdom, by then a vassal of the Arab Caliphate, had lost much of the control it once exercised over northern Azerbaijan. Albanian authority in the region was eclipsed with the rise of the Shirvan dynasty (6th - 16th centuries) in Eastern Caucasia. The Shirvan dynasty reached its ze nith in the 10th century, exercising control over large areas once ruled by the Caucasian Albanian Kingdom. The succeeding centuries saw Azerbaijan ruled by a series of mainly Turkic empires from Central Asia, a development that led to the eventual Turkification of the region. The Seljuk Turks arrived in the I I th century, followed by the Chinghizid Ilkhanid and Timurid em pires from the 13th to 15th centuries, and the Gar agoyunlu and Agh-Goyunlu states, based in southern Azerbaijan, in the 15th century. By the beginning of the 16th century, the Safavid dy nasty of southern Azerbaijan assumed the throne in Persia and eventually incorporated the Shirvan king dom, as well as Nakhchivan and Garabagh, into its rule. The founder of the Safavid dynasty, Shah Ismail I (ruled 1501-1524), maintained relations with Hungary and Germany, and entered into negotiations regarding a military alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor Karl V. During the latter half of the 16th century, wars between the Turkish Ottoman empire and the Safavid led to Ottoman occupation of Eastern Caucasia, between 1578 and 1603. As Safavid authority began to wane, the Russians and Ottomans fought for control of the area. The first two decades of the 18th century mark a deci sive moment in Azerbaijan?s history: the beginning of Russian influence in the area, as Peter I (the Great) brought the Caspian coast under his control. With the final breakup of the Safavid dynasty in the middle of the 18th century, the remains of their empire in the Caucasus fell to a number of independent khanates, among them the khanates, of Baku, Gar abagh, Guba and Nakhchivan. These khanates were mainly Islamic and Turkic, and frequently at war with each other for control of the area. Catherine the Great, sought to extend its hegemony with Iran, which was consolidating its hold on the territories of southern Azerbaijan formerly ruled by the Safavids. As a result, two Russo-Iranian wars were fought, from 1804-1813 and from 1826-1828. The first war ended with the Treaty of Gulistan, which ceded the majority of the northern khanates to Russian authority. The Treaty of Turkmanchay, ending the second war, gave Russia further control over the khanates of Yerevan and Nakhchivan. The effect of these two trea ties was to divide Azerbaijan in two, with northern Azerbaijan subjugated to Russian colonial rule. But for the 1918-1920 period of Azerbaijan?s independence, this pattern persisted until the final dissolution of the Soviet empire. The latter half of the nineteenth century was a time of great economic development for Azerbaijan, based largely on the discovery of huge oil reserves. Indeed, Baku is today considered a birthplace of the modern oil industry. Baku attracted investors and oil developers from all over the world, among them Alfred Nobel and his brothers. In fact, the fortune that Alfred Nobel acquired through his work in Baku?s emerging oil in dustry allowed him to establish the Nobel Prize. With the collapse of Tsarist rule in Russia at the end of World War 1, Azerbaijan, along with the other Cauca sian nations of Armenia and Georgia, seized the oppor tunity to declare independence. On May 28, 1918 still celebrated today as Independence Day - the peo ple of Azerbaijan established their own independent state, the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan. The in ternational community was quick to recognize the new country, including the United States. Newly indepen dent Azerbaijan was the first nation in the region to adopt a secular, democratic form of government. United States president Woodrow Wilson is said to have remarked during the Paris Peace Conference, ?There came in a very dignified and interesting group of gen tleman from Azerbaijan - I was talking to men who talked the same language that I did in respect of ideals, in respect of conceptions of liberty, in conceptions of right and justice.? But after two short years, Russia again moved to assert its rule over Azerbaijan. In April, 1920, units of the Russian Bolshevik II th Army invaded Azerbaijan and overthrew the government. With the Red Army occu pying its territory, Azerbaijan was forcibly incorpo rated into the Soviet Union with the signing of the Treaty of Formation of the USSR on December 30, 1922. For the next 70 years, Azerbaijan languished as a col ony of the Soviet State. Soviet authorities ceded the Azerbaijani territory of Zangezur to Armenia, thus cut ting off Nakhchivan from the rest of Azerbaijan. When Azerbaijan was forcibly annexed into the USSR, its total territory was 114,000 sq. km; on regaining its independence in 1991, Azerbaijan?s territory was 86,600 sq. km.