Flight to Baku

Baku

About Baku

Baku (Azerbaijani: Bak?), sometimes known as Baky or Baki, is the capital, the largest city, and the largest port of Azerbaijan. Located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, the city consists of two principal parts: the downtown and the old Inner City (21,5 ha). As of January 1, 2005 the population was 2,036,000 of which 153,400 were internally displaced persons and 93,400 refugees. Baku is a member of Organization of World Heritage Cities and Sister Cities International. The city is also bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Baku is divided into eleven administrative districts, or raions (Azizbayov, Binagadi, Garadagh, Narimanov, Nasimi, Nizami, Sabail, Sabunchu, Khatai, Surakhany and Yasamal) and 48 townships. Among these are the townships on islands in the Baku Bay and the town of Oil Rocks built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, 60 km away from Baku.

Etymology

The name Baku is widely believed to be derived from the old Persian names of the city Bad-kube " ?", meaning "Wind-pounded city", in which "Bad" means wind and "Kube" is rooted in the verb "Kubidan", to pound, thus referring to a place where wind is strong and pounding. Indeed, the city is renown for its fierce winter snow storms and harsh winds.[dubious - discuss] It is also believed that Baku refers to Baghkuh, meaning "Mount of God". Baga (now Bagh) and Kaufa (now Kuh) are the Old Persian words for God and Mountain respectively; the name Baghkuh may be compared with Baghdad (God-given) in which da is the Old Persian word for Give. Arabic sources refer to the city as Baku, Bakukh, Bakuya, and Bakuye, all of which seem to come from the original Persian name.

Other theories suggest that the name dates back to Zoroastrianism and comes from the word Baga meaning "the god" in Avestan and Sanskrit.

History

The first written evidence for Baku is related to the 6th century AD.

The city became important after an earthquake destroyed Shamakhy and in the 12th century, ruling Shirvanshah Ahsitan I made Baku the new capital. In 1501, Safavid Shah Ismail I laid a siege on Baku. At this time the city was however enclosed with the lines of strong walls, which were washed by sea on one side and protected by a wide trench on land. In 1540 Baku was again captured by the Safavid troops. In 1604 the Baku fortress was destroyed by Iranian shah Abbas I.

On June 26, 1723, after a lasting siege using cannons, Baku surrendered to the Russians. According to Peter the Great's decree the soldiers of two regiments (2,382 people) were left in the Baku garrison under the command of Prince Baryatyanski, the commandant of the city. In 1795, Baku was invaded by Agha Muhammad Khan Qajar to defend against the tsarist Russia beginning a policy of subduing the South Caucasus to itself. In the spring of 1796 by Yekaterina II's order General Zubov's troops started a large campaign in Transcaucasia. Baku surrendered after the first demand of Zubov who had sent 6,000 militants to capture the city. On June 13, 1796 the Russian flotilla entered the Baku bay and a garrison of the Russian troops was placed in the city. General Pavel Tsitsianov was appointed the Baku's commandant. Later, however, Czar Pavel I ordered him to cease the campaign and withdraw the Russian forces. In March, 1797 the tsarist troops left Baku but a new tsar, Alexander I began to show a special interest in capturing Baku. In 1803, Tsitsianov reached an agreement with the Baku khan to compromise, but the agreement was soon annulled. On February 8, 1806, upon the surrendering of Baku, Huseyngulu khan of Baku stabbed and killed Tsitsianov at the gates of the city.

Azerbaijan

About Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan (IPA: /?æz?ba?'n/ (UK), /z?ba?'n/ (US); Azerbaijani: Az?rbaycan), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Az?rbaycan Respublikas?), is the largest and most populous country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan is bordered by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, and Turkey to the northwest. Nagorno-Karabakh, along with 7 other districts in Azerbaijan's southwest, have been controlled by Armenia since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. Four United Nations Security Council Resolutions (822, 853, 874, and 884) called for "the withdrawal of occupying forces from occupied areas of the Azerbaijani Republic" The country's territory also encompasses several islands in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan, a nation with an ethnic Azeri and Shi »˜ite Muslim majority population, is a secular and unitary republic. The country has been a co-founder of GUAM and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and has been a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States since September 1993. The country has a Permanent Mission to the European Union, hosts a Special Envoy of the European Commission and is a member of the United Nations, OSCE, Council of Europe, and the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) program.

Etymology of the name

The name of Azerbaijan derives from Atropates, a satrap of Persia under the Achaemenid empire, who was later reinstated as the satrap of Media under Alexander of Macedonia. The original etymology of this name is thought to have its roots in the ancient Zoroastrianism, namely, in Avestan Frawardin Yasht ("Hymn to the Guardian Angels"), there is a mentioning of: âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide, which literally translates from Old Persian as "we worship the Fravashi of the holy Atare-pata" . Atropates ruled over the region of present-day Iranian Azerbaijan. The name "Atropates" itself is derived from Old Persian roots meaning "protected by fire."

History

The earliest evidence of human settlement in the territory of Azerbaijan dates to the late Stone Age and is related to the Quruçay culture of Azykh Cave. The Upper Paleolithic and particularly Mousterian cultures are attested to in the caves of Ta?lar, Damcili, Zar, Yataq-yeri, etc. Jugs with the remnants of dry wine, revealed in the necropolises of Leylatepe and Sarytepe, testify to wine-making activity during the Late Bronze Age.

The entire South Caucasus was conquered by the Achaemenids around 550 B.C., which led to the spread of Zoroastrianism in this part of the Persian Empire. After its overthrow by Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Greeks, who inherited the Caucasus, were ultimately beset by pressures from Rome, secessionist Greeks in Bactria and most adversely the Parthians. Caucasian Albanians, the original inhabitants of the area established a kingdom in the 4th century B.C. In 95-67 B.C. parts of Caucasian Albania may have been under the subjugation of neighboring Armenia, as a part of Tigranes the Great's empire. According to Strabo, as the Romans and Parthians began to expand their domains, Albania, unlike Iberia and Armenia, remained independent of Roman domination, signing a peace treaty (Strabo XI, 4, 5). The Roman inscription found in Gobustan testifies to the presence of Legio XII Fulminata in the time of Domitian.

Caucasian Albania remained largely independent until the Sassanids turned it into a vassal state in 252 A.D. King Urnayr of Caucasian Albania officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th century A.D., and Albania remained a predominantly Christian state until the Islamic conquest of the 8th century A.D. Despite numerous conquests by the Sassanids and Byzantines, Caucasian Albania remained an entity in the region until the 9th century A.D. The territory of modern Azerbaijan roughly corresponds to the ancient state of Caucasian Albania.

The Islamic Umayyad Caliphate defeated both the Sassanids and the Byzantines, making Caucasian Albania a vassal state after the Christian resistance, led by Prince Javanshir, was suppressed in 667 A.D. After the decline of Abbasid Caliphate, the territory of present-day Azerbaijan was under the sway of numerous dynasties such as the Salarids, Sajids, Shaddadids, Rawadids and Buyids. At the beginning of the 11th century, the territory was gradually seized by waves of Turkic Oghuz tribes from Central Asia. The first of these dynasties were the Ghaznavids, who took over part of the area now known as Azerbaijan by 1030.

Locally, the possessions of the subsequent Seljuk Empire were ruled by atabegs, who were technically vassals of the Seljuk sultans, being sometimes de facto rulers themselves. Under the Seljuk Turks, local poets such as Nizami Ganjavi and Khagani Shirvani gave rise to a blossoming of Persian literature on the territory of present-day Azerbaijan. The next ruling state of the Jalayirids was short-lived and fell under the conquests of Tamerlan. The local dynasty of Shirvanshahs became a vassal state of Tamerlan's empire and assisted Tamerlan in his war with the ruler of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh. Following Tamerlan's death two independent and rival states emerged: Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu. Until his death the Ak Koyunlu sultan Uzun Hasan ruled the whole territory now known as Azerbaijan. Thereafter the Shirvanshahs maintained a high degree of autonomy as local rulers and vassals from 861 until 1539. As the Shirvanshahs were persecuted by the Safavids, the last dynasty imposed Shia Islam upon the formerly Sunni population, battling against the Sunni Ottoman Empire. The area was ruled under Iranian dynasties of Afshar and Zand following the collapse of the Safavids and briefly under Qajars. In the meanwhile, however, several independent khanates emerged in the area, especially following collapse of Zand dynasty and in early Qajar era. Engaged in constant warfare, these khanates were eventually incorporated to the Russian Empire, following two Russo-Persian Wars. Under the Treaty of Turkmenchay the Persian Empire recognized Russian sovereignty over the Erivan khanate, the Nakhchivan khanate and the remainder of the Talysh khanate.

After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War I, Azerbaijan, together with Armenia and Georgia became part of the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. When the republic dissolved in May 1918, Azerbaijan declared independence as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). The ADR was the first democratic parliamentary republic in the Muslim world, but lasted only 23 months until the Bolshevik XIth Red Army invaded in April 1920. Overthrowing the ADR government, Bolsheviks established Azerbaijan SSR in Baku on April 28, 1920.

In 1922, Azerbaijan, along with Armenia and Georgia, became part of the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic {TSFSR), which itself became a constituent member of the newly-established Soviet Union. In 1936, TSFSR was dissolved and Azerbaijan SSR became one of the 12 (by 1940 - 15) constituent member states of the Soviet Union.

During the 1940s, the Azerbaijan SSR supplied much of the Soviet Union's oil on the Eastern Front of World War II. Close to 600,000 Azerbaijanis fought on this front against Nazi Germany. Operation Edelweiss was launched by Adolf Hitler to occupy the Caucasian oilfields and capture Baku, but all the offensives were pushed back. The Germans made largely fruitless efforts to enlist the cooperation of émigré political figures, such as Mammed Amin Rasulzade, who came to Berlin and found opportunities to meet captured Soviet Azerbaijani POWs.

Following the politics of glasnost, initiated by the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of the Azerbaijan SSR. The disturbances in Azerbaijan, in response to Moscow's indifference to already heated conflict, resulted in calls for independence and secession from the USSR, which subsequently culminated in the events of Black January in Baku. At this time, Ayaz Mutallibov was appointed as the First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party.