Azerbaijan travel guide

Azerbaijan is burning on all cyclinders. Indeed, its name even means Land of Fire. With an economy that exploded through oil and natural gas exploitation, its capital Baku, on the Caspian coast, looks a bit more like Dubai than the remote eastern frontier many of us imagine it to be. Although falling oil prices are changing that. Sandwiched between Iran and Russia, it was an important stop on the Silk Road trading route for centuries however, and so even though it’s now often viewed as nothing more than a land fuelled by oil, the history of Persian, Russian and Turkish influences scattered through the dramatic Caucasus Mountains or along its Caspian Coast are pretty prey to serious culture vultures.

Outside Baku you will still witness traditional lifestyles, meet mountain village artisans, trek in the great Caucasus Mountains, see surreal mud volcanoes and one of the world’s most extraordinary display of ancient petroglyphs. Which have, thankfully, nothing to do with petrol.

Azerbaijan is a land of dichotomies. If it had to choose a star sign it would struggle. Both water and fire, the capital Baku is on the Caspian Sea, but also home to oil drilling derricks. The Caucasus Mountains are as earthy as you can get, peppered with traditional elevated villages such as Lahic, where subsistence farming and traditional art forms still thrive. And then there is fire. Everywhere. From the permanently alight natural gas ‘flaming mountain’ of Yanardag to fire worshippers’ Ateshgah temple, both on the Absheron Peninsula . And as for air, just head to the omnipresent mountains. Bring a hipflask of vodka with you to combine air and fire. And you’ll have got Azerbaijan.