Treasures of the World with Bettany Hughes - Season 2, Episode 6 Azerbaijan and the Silk Roads
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00:00I'm traveling across the world, exploring secrets and wonders.
00:07This is really tight.
00:09So I asked my friends here if they could get me access
00:13off the beaten track.
00:15And I have 100% definitely got what I asked for.
00:20An adventure by land and sea to the most fascinating places.
00:25It is just extraordinary.
00:29I've been given special access to significant and surprising treasures.
00:34Some of the most remarkable artworks to survive from antiquity.
00:39Buried in ancient sites, incredible buildings and glorious works of art.
00:46I'm in search of the treasures that help to explain the story of us.
00:51Journey with me to discover how the past shapes our lives today.
00:58This time, the culturally rich, rugged, ravishing country of Azerbaijan.
01:05Azerbaijan is a unique and completely remarkable land
01:10that's attracted adventurers and diverse cultures since prehistory.
01:17From gas-powered flames bursting out of the earth
01:23to ancient rock carvings dating back tens of thousands of years.
01:29The marvels of the legendary Silk Road.
01:32That is a beautiful colour.
01:35And futuristic skyscrapers towering over a medieval walled city.
01:43We'll unpack the stories and wonders of a land
01:47whose very geography makes history.
02:02Azerbaijan sits between the majestic Caucasus Mountains
02:06and the sparkling Caspian Sea.
02:10The name Azerbaijan comes from an ancient word for fire.
02:15And over there, there are hillsides that suddenly burst into flame
02:20and down here, under the Caspian Sea, there are fields of oil.
02:25Fossil fuels have brought wealth to modern Azerbaijan,
02:29but its wonders stretch right back to prehistory.
02:39MUSIC
02:50Where I'm heading now is an amazing treasure
02:53that's on the hills above the deserts just outside Baku.
03:01This is Gobustan National Reserve
03:04in the foothills of the Caucasus mountain range.
03:09A unique landscape that hides the story of humanity.
03:1340,000 years ago, nomadic hunter-gatherers and fishermen
03:17set foot here and began to leave an indelible,
03:21tantalising record of how they lived.
03:24Carved into these rocks are more than 7,000 UNESCO-protected pictures,
03:29inscriptions and stories,
03:31and I'm heading to one known as the Seven Beauties engraving.
03:36It's a bit of a scramble to get to.
03:39Its outline is faint now, but originally, it would have been more like this.
03:44What you're looking at here are figures that date to around 7,000 BCE,
03:49so that means they are 9,000 years old.
03:53And there are seven women represented here.
03:56You can see their tiny, cinched-in waists
03:59and they've got this beautiful V decoration
04:02pointing down below their hips.
04:04But they're also carrying these massive staffs,
04:07and if you look, can you see the ends have got a curve in them?
04:11And that's usually a sign of status or standing.
04:16And the thing is, we don't know who they are.
04:19We don't know whether they're real women or female deities
04:23or the kind of incarnation of some female spirit.
04:27But it must be some statement of might.
04:31So whatever this art is telling us,
04:35it's describing some kind of very inaccessible mystical power.
04:46This art can be found on rocks and hillsides across 20 square miles.
04:53There are over 100 images of boats on the rocks here
04:58and there are 10 on this rock alone.
05:01Some are really, really faint and eroded,
05:04but you can make out these three very well.
05:07I mean, they're incredibly old, these.
05:10So these date back around 8,000 years,
05:13so that's the 6th or 7th millennium BCE.
05:17People are shown braving the seas.
05:20People are shown braving the seas, heading out on adventures.
05:25And, of course, we don't have history from this time,
05:28so these are unique clues as to what was happening.
05:39It was only in the 1930s that the incredible art here was rediscovered.
05:46Basically, miners were working in the region
05:49and they moved a boulder and uncovered these mysterious inscriptions,
05:54so archaeologists were called in,
05:56but they had no idea of the scale of wonder that was going to be revealed.
06:12The ancient inhabitants of Azerbaijan
06:15sculpted and drummed on the stones of Gobustan to create music.
06:20Natik Shurinov has spent years sourcing the right rocks
06:24to replicate this primal sound.
06:31Bravo! Bravo!
06:34That's fantastic! Fantastic.
06:37It's amazing. It's lovely for me to hear.
06:40Because, I mean, this is a sound that's been played here
06:43not just for thousands of years, but for tens of thousands of years.
07:02I know this was used to create music,
07:05but do you think it was also used to send messages
07:08between the people and tribes here?
07:14An echo of this, the original rock music, continues in Azerbaijan.
07:21So they still do this traditional dance here called the Yali dance,
07:26and a lot of the moves are the same as the ones that you see
07:29in the rock inscriptions,
07:31and the fact that they use this massive bit of stone in the centre too,
07:35that's exactly as they were doing here back in prehistory.
07:40Passed down through generations,
07:42Yali is still very much alive in Azerbaijani culture.
07:56Many of Gobustan's cultural heritage
07:59dates back to the Middle Ages,
08:01when it was the capital of Azerbaijan.
08:05Many of Gobustan's carved rocks are so delicate and unique,
08:10mainly only researchers can visit,
08:13but I've been granted exclusive access to one called Djingidakh.
08:20Last time I came here, I met an amazing archaeologist called Savinc,
08:24who made me promise that I would come back
08:27to see the excavation she was working on,
08:30and she's made some incredible finds.
08:33And I'm very lucky to get to see them
08:35because this is somewhere the public can't normally go to.
08:39Hiya.
08:40Hi, Mertini.
08:42Hello. Lovely to see you.
08:44Yes.
08:45You promised that you would come back.
08:47I know I did.
08:49Yeah, thank you.
08:51So tell me what I'm looking at here.
08:53We have Arabic inscription, which is called Beyler, or Bekler.
08:59It is the name of local tribe.
09:01We have medieval tribal sign, which is called Tamgaz.
09:05We have goats.
09:07So this is obviously medieval.
09:09Yes, yes.
09:10So it's much, much, much later.
09:12Yes, later, but they are in the same panel with the Bronze Age goats.
09:15We have horses here.
09:17Like a curved...
09:18Yeah, head.
09:19Yeah.
09:20Back line here, legs.
09:22First leg, the other leg is here.
09:24We have the other horse.
09:25So that's really fascinating.
09:27So if this is Arabic and that's a travel sign...
09:29Yes.
09:30So these people, these are sort of traders who are using the, you know,
09:33Silk Roads maybe, or, you know, even kind of here as part of the Spice Route.
09:37And they're leaving their mark.
09:39And they're choosing to do it on top of something that is probably
09:43three and a half, maybe 4,000 years old from the Bronze Age.
09:46Yeah, that's quite interesting that in Gobustan we have dialogue of,
09:53let's call it dialogue between different cultures,
09:56between different peoples.
09:59Bronze Age people met the medieval carvings on the same plot,
10:03on the same panel.
10:04Are there particular rocks that, I don't know,
10:07have some sacred power or special meaning to people?
10:11Yeah, it is interesting that choosing of this site wasn't accidentally
10:16because this site directed to the mountain and maybe this mountain
10:21and this hill had any kind of...
10:23Relationship?
10:24Yeah, sacred value for the locals.
10:30And the finds keep on coming.
10:33Savinc and her team have identified over 540 new carvings
10:38here at Genghidar since I've known her.
10:41We bumped into each other here in Gobustan five years ago.
10:45Yeah.
10:46And we just were talking, talking about archaeology
10:48and the power of archaeology, and I remember you saying
10:51how much it means to you.
10:54I feel the spirit of my ancestor and it really makes me cry.
11:02I imagine that 1,000 years ago somebody stayed there
11:07and carved these images on the rocks.
11:10So when I register them right now, I feel the same vibes.
11:15Yeah, that's so beautiful.
11:17So you're up here but you don't feel alone.
11:20You're in the company of women and men from history.
11:23Yes.
11:24Really, this place has all importance and value for me.
11:31Aw.
11:32Yeah.
11:33You'll keep on finding more here, won't you?
11:35Yes, yes.
11:36Yeah.
11:37It's a really great site.
11:38It is.
11:41The astonishing stories at Gobustan offer a rare window
11:45into the lives at a vital intersection between East and West,
11:50bearing witness to many great civilisations,
11:54including the Romans who carved Latin into this rock 2,000 years ago.
12:01I just love this place because it feels like
12:05a completely unique and wondrous treasure
12:09because this is somewhere where memory itself is set in stone
12:14and all across this landscape there are remarkable clues
12:18to people's lives from prehistory right through to the present.
12:23And what the art here tells us is not just what we've done
12:28but what has mattered to us as humans.
12:35Azerbaijan's strategic position on the Silk Roads,
12:39the ancient trade routes linking China with the West,
12:42spurred innovation with the exchange of goods, skills and new ideas.
12:49I'm heading to Shaki.
12:51Not only was it an absolutely stunning stop on the Silk Routes
12:56but it also produced some of the most sumptuous treasures
13:00to be traded all the way along those amazing roads.
13:05It's a wonder because it traces the ways
13:08and the materials of the earth to create beauty.
13:12Shaki has been a hub for silk production for centuries.
13:16From here, silk was exported to Russia, India, Iran,
13:21the Turkish Ottoman Empire and Europe.
13:24Even the Romans bought silk from this region.
13:28The Khan dynasty made Shaki their capital between 1743 and 1819.
13:34It became known as the City of Silk.
13:39In 1797, the ruler Muhammad Hassan Khan
13:43displayed the immense wealth generated by the Silk Road
13:47when he built this lavish two-storey summer residence.
13:53A palace of light.
13:56So this is the Queen's Chamber that I'm coming into.
13:59The reason I have to stoop down as I come in
14:02is that all these rooms have these wooden blocks on the floor
14:05because people would all sit on the floor so it stopped the draughts coming in
14:09but also to make you bow in this slightly subservient way
14:13in the presence of royalty.
14:15It's so gorgeous, this place, isn't it?
14:17Everything here tells you that it's connected to women
14:20so it's a bit of a mystery.
14:23It also tells you that it's connected to women
14:26so the red colour, that was thought to be a representation
14:30of the power and passion of the female.
14:33And it's just gorgeous because it also talks about abundance.
14:37So these grapes here, grapes were one of the fruits in the Garden of Paradise
14:43and the irises that you see everywhere,
14:46these grow naturally in real profusion here in Azerbaijan.
14:50And the colour was thought to ward off disease and evil
14:55so it's a ceremonial room
14:58but it is absolutely packed full of messages too.
15:06These decorations reveal how a crucial destination along the Silk Roads,
15:11like Azerbaijan, enabled different cultures to meet and interact.
15:20This is the main ceremonial audience chamber
15:23so the decorations here are a bit more crunchy.
15:27They're all imagined but they're fighting scenes
15:30and you've got everybody who was important at the time represented.
15:33So there are Ottomans and Mongolians
15:37and here I think these are men from Azerbaijan.
15:41You've even got a Cossack up there.
15:43But what I just love this place is that it talks about
15:46that combination of East and West too.
15:49So up here somewhere, there's an elephant
15:54because the rulers before these khans used to go to India
15:58and use elephants in their armies.
16:01And then over here is a really, really interesting mythological scene.
16:06It's a horrible scene, it's a scene of total carnage
16:09because all these different animals are being hunted down
16:12and chopped to pieces and destroyed, including a unicorn.
16:16And that is a unicorn that comes directly out of Western mythology
16:21and fairy tales.
16:25The palace was beautiful and at the business end of a dynasty,
16:29which at the time was one of the most powerful in the Caucasus.
16:37This is the room the khan would use to come in
16:41to kind of in effect go through his inbox
16:43and look at all his papers and documents and sign petitions.
16:47So it's really like his office.
16:49And so all the decoration here is chosen to remind him
16:53how to be a good ruler.
16:55So you've got a lion and dragon in an immortal fight
17:01to prove that struggle is pointless.
17:04There's a really lovely pomegranate tree.
17:07So pomegranates are symbols of fertility,
17:10but also because you have hundreds and hundreds of seeds in each fruit,
17:14the idea that it's only the outer casing and good governance
17:18that brings unity.
17:20But it's up here, these medallions are definitely my favourite in the room.
17:24So this whole ceiling, by the way, was replicated perfectly on a carpet
17:28that would have been down below.
17:32And up here you've got a woman with a lion's body,
17:37but she's also got wings and she's holding a sword and she has a crown.
17:42So that shows that she can be a ruler.
17:45And women in Azerbaijan absolutely had status and standing.
17:50And then there's this kind of funny version of that over here.
17:54So here you've also got a woman with a lion's body
17:57and she does still have a sword,
17:59but she doesn't have wings and she doesn't have a crown.
18:02And that's because this woman is only fair of face.
18:06She's not all so beautiful in mind and soul and spirit.
18:11So the idea is that you have to be wise in order to exercise real power.
18:17It's not just about how you look.
18:21And this gorgeous glass?
18:24Well, it was brought all the way from Italy
18:27by the Venetians who traded it for silk.
18:30The design's called shebeke, web or lattice,
18:34a lovely reflection of the interweaving of cultures along the Silk Roads.
18:48This is a city that's basically devoted to silk and has been for centuries.
18:53So down all these little side streets, you'll find quite a lot of the houses.
18:58I've got this strange sort of attic structure on the top,
19:01which is where the silkworms were held.
19:04So families have been producing silk here for almost thousands of years.
19:09Yeah, look, look.
19:11It's lovely, isn't it?
19:13And here is a mulberry tree,
19:15and the reason these are here is because silkworms love to eat mulberry leaves.
19:20It's all that they can survive on.
19:22So you have these little sort of mini mulberry forests in the city.
19:27As silkworms were cultivated in many private gardens,
19:31Shakhi became known as a garden city.
19:35So I seem to have been roped into a bit of spontaneous white mulberry harvesting.
19:41It's really cool, this, because this is how, on Greek pots and things,
19:45you see this is how they used to harvest olives.
19:48So it's obviously been going on like this, you know, for, well, for hundreds of years, I should think.
19:56This is Guadalupe.
20:04Yep, I just got one on my head.
20:14In 1931, the first silk factory was built in Shakhi,
20:20and it's still producing exquisite carpets and scarves.
20:27THEY LAUGH
20:32It's one of the great things about Azerbaijan.
20:34Wherever you go, in a city or the countryside, you always get offered tea by people.
20:39So first time in my life, though, I've ever shared tea with silk workers.
20:45It's a first time for everything.
20:56Ogar Aghaev's family have been making silk here for generations.
21:01It's so interesting to see this.
21:03Am I right in thinking that before, under the USSR,
21:06this was, like, the biggest production?
21:08Yeah, it was the biggest enterprise in all Azerbaijan, also in all Caucasus.
21:12Dyeing the fabric was once considered a sacred art,
21:15and those who worked the cloth were thought to be blessed.
21:19So he takes it and that goes straight in the dye there? Yes.
21:23That is a beautiful colour. Sure.
21:26The production of kelahai, a traditional woman's headscarf,
21:31is also a process that's UNESCO protected.
21:34Each colour is endowed with special meaning.
21:38A bright red scarf is given to a bride before her wedding,
21:42and one popular pattern is the buta, a symbol of fire and fertility.
21:49So what's happening here?
21:51This is the first stop where they put stamps,
21:54and they use different type of stamps.
21:57As you see, it's a wooden stamp,
21:59and very useful for putting pattern on scarves.
22:02So they're keeping it warm, but what is it?
22:05What's that material that they're using on the stamps?
22:08It's paraffin and camphor.
22:10Camphor. Camphor.
22:12I thought I could smell that. Yes.
22:15Beautiful smell.
22:17I would scare away the mosquitoes as well, if you will. Sure.
22:21It's a lovely atmosphere in here. Of course.
22:24It's very sort of calm. You can hear the birds outside.
22:28And it's quite meditative, you know, creating these things by hand.
22:32That's why this production goes well. Yes.
22:35If you link to the nature, if you feel the nature,
22:38of course it goes a successful way. Yeah. You get success.
22:41There's this beautiful thing that neuroscientists say,
22:44that if you're using your hands to make something,
22:47your brain is in its kind of alpha state,
22:49cos it's what we're meant to do as a species. Of course.
22:52So it makes us happy. I agree.
22:54And it is not just a business, it's tradition.
22:57And it comes spiritually.
22:59That's why we are successful on this part, on this production.
23:05We think the Kalahayi headscarf appeared in Azerbaijan 2,000 years ago
23:12to protect against evil spirits.
23:15It remains an integral part of cultural and religious identity.
23:22The factory in Shaki is overlooked up in the Caucasus foothills by Kish,
23:27one of the oldest villages in Azerbaijan,
23:30so a good stop-off to try on a Kalahayi.
23:34I basically bought the whole workshop load of scarves.
23:38However, I don't really know how to put them on,
23:40but luckily, lovely Naila here,
23:44who's been travelling around and helping me in Azerbaijan,
23:48also wearing a particularly lovely scarf,
23:50has agreed to show me how to do it the proper way.
23:54Because the thing with these is that they're very particular ways to wear them,
23:58so sometimes it shows that you're married
24:00or that you're a young woman without children.
24:03And here, there's myths and legends that if you knot them in a particular way,
24:07it shows that you're sending a message to people that you're wise or, you know, ambitious.
24:11OK, let's have a go.
24:15And I chose this one, by the way, because it's got pomegranates on,
24:18and pomegranates are that lovely symbol of fertility,
24:21kind of ambition and unity that you get here.
24:24OK. Thank you.
24:26You are welcome.
24:31Fantastic. So now we can have some tea.
24:34Silk scarves like these have been traded in Shakhi for centuries.
24:41It was a typical merchant's town,
24:43with a bazaar, warehouses and a caravanserai,
24:47accommodation for merchants travelling on the Silk Road.
24:53These caravanserais were really high-security places.
24:57They were basically like kind of castles for commerce.
25:00And this is interesting.
25:02So this knocker announced the fact that men had arrived,
25:06and for women...
25:09That's why I'm using that one.
25:15Built in the 18th century, the complex has more than 200 rooms
25:20and a 14-metre-high protective wall to keep out thieves.
25:25And it's still a hotel.
25:27Basically, this was a kind of one-stop shop,
25:30so merchants would sleep on the upper levels here.
25:34They'd do business underneath the arches with other traders,
25:38and then all their luxury goods, which were really precious,
25:41were stored in these cellars down here.
25:43Silks and spices and jewels and gold
25:46and carpets and textiles and precious dyes.
25:50And, of course, all those things had to get here,
25:53so there were mules and horses and camels,
25:56and we have records of some camel caravans
25:59that had up to 1,000 animals in them.
26:04For added security, the stairs leading to the second floor
26:08were removed at night so the merchants could sleep easy.
26:17The famous traveller Marco Polo,
26:20The famous traveller Marco Polo wrote about this place.
26:24He was praising the gold and silver threads
26:26that were used in silk production here,
26:28and he said that there was so much silk in this region
26:32that all the beds were covered in silk blankets, even in hotels.
26:36So there must have been silk blankets in this place.
26:40And, you know, you've just got to think of the buzz of staying here
26:44because we know that traders came here from what's now China
26:48and Iran and Russia and North Africa and Western Europe.
26:54So this was somewhere that you didn't just come to exchange goods,
26:58but also ideas.
27:08Shaki is a treasure in and of itself,
27:11but also because it's a crucial component of the Silk Roads.
27:17That constant thread of commerce and civilisation
27:21that allowed cultures and ideas to meet and flourish.
27:39Azerbaijan is home to nine different climate zones,
27:44creating an amazingly diverse terrain,
27:47from lush green forests to rocky mountains
27:51to desert-like plains and the sandy shores of the Caspian Sea.
27:57My next treasure is an otherworldly landscape
28:01forged by this unique geology.
28:04I'm travelling to Yanadag,
28:06famous for one of the most miraculous natural wonders in the world,
28:10flames that burn perpetually.
28:15Fuelled by natural gas escaping from under the ground.
28:21These fires have emblazoned the landscape throughout history,
28:25attracting the attention of travellers,
28:27including one French author in the 19th century.
28:34The writer Alexander Dumas, who travelled here,
28:37described these fields of flame in ecstatic terms.
28:43He actually compared them to the volcano Vesuvius above Pompeii.
28:52And I have to say, I think there's a bit of dramatic licence there,
28:56but they are extraordinary, aren't they?
28:59I mean, as he says, they never seem to go out,
29:02and Dumas wrote that neither winds nor storm could extinguish them.
29:13This particular wall of flame has been blazing away
29:16since it was accidentally lit by a shepherd's cigarette back in the 1950s.
29:23Just a few kilometres away,
29:25the landscape boasts another natural wonder fuelled by the gas reserve.
29:30Mud volcanoes.
29:37These were created 25 million years ago,
29:41and they are just extraordinary,
29:44and there are over 700 here in Azerbaijan alone.
29:48And sometimes when they erupt,
29:51they produce traces of fool's gold or gold itself.
29:55Instead of being caused by hot, boiling magma,
29:59these volcanoes are created when methane gas
30:02churns up water under the earth to form bubbling pools.
30:06Curiously, they're cold, often just above freezing temperature.
30:12It's no surprise that travellers who came to this region wrote about them.
30:17So there's a brilliant author who wrote in Arabic called al-Masudi,
30:22and he describes this as being a place where you'd find fields of gold
30:27and mines of jewels and volcanoes of mud.
30:32I mean, who could not write about something like this?
30:37Every 20 years or so,
30:39a volcano ignites underground, causing massive explosions,
30:44a natural phenomenon once inexplicable,
30:47encouraging early adventurers to talk about the power of nature here
30:51in ecstatic terms.
30:54With its mystical, otherworldly feel,
30:57this awe-inspiring landscape has attracted pilgrims for centuries.
31:03Just outside the capital, Baku, is the Ateshka Fire Temple.
31:10It's built on top of a natural gas vent.
31:13The fires burn here all year round.
31:19A deeply sacred place for one of the world's oldest active religions,
31:24the Zoroastrian faith.
31:27Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam
31:32and was founded on the words and ideas of the prophet Zoroaster,
31:37who probably lived sometime around the 6th century BCE.
31:41The beliefs are really interesting because there is one god
31:45but two spirits, a spirit of good and evil,
31:49and it's up to us as humans to choose which path to take.
31:53And it's up to us as humans to choose which path to follow.
31:57And if we choose to follow the path of light,
32:00represented by this holy fire,
32:03then through our deeds and our words and our thoughts,
32:07we can all actively make the world a better place.
32:13Fire rituals play a key part in Zoroastrian ceremonies.
32:24All around this building you'll find these inscriptions in different languages.
32:28So this one's in Persian and Sanskrit,
32:32which is an ancient Indian language.
32:34And there's a particular reason for that.
32:36So at various times through history,
32:39from antiquity through to the advent of Islam and the modern world,
32:44the Zoroastrians would have times when they were really unpopular
32:47or even persecuted,
32:49and a lot of the believers fled to India
32:52and then came back again along the Grand Trunk Road.
32:56And actually that's one of the reasons you see so many visitors
33:00from the Indian subcontinent still here today.
33:06The mountains of fire and flame here in the Caucasus region
33:10have inspired myths and legends
33:12that appear in the cultures of both the East and the West.
33:17MUSIC PLAYS
33:30These mountains are always a place
33:32that have lived really large in the world's imagination.
33:36For instance, there's a fantastic Greek myth
33:39that Prometheus stole fire from the gods
33:43that Prometheus stole fire from the gods
33:46to give to humanity so that they could advance civilisation.
33:50But the gods were not best pleased about this
33:54and Zeus, the king of the gods, chained Prometheus to a rock here
33:58and sent an eagle every day to peck out his liver.
34:02I mean, that was obviously bad enough,
34:04but overnight his liver would regrow,
34:07so this torment was eternal.
34:14So you kind of get the sense that this epic landscape
34:18was somewhere that people wanted to imagine
34:21world-changing events took place.
34:32Azerbaijan's extraordinary geology still mesmerises
34:36and connects us to the people of the past
34:39who also found it a marvel.
34:43This strange, beautiful landscape of Azerbaijan
34:47has intrigued travellers
34:49and given this place a mystical meaning for centuries.
34:54This land is a treasure and a wonder
34:58because it seems to exist somewhere
35:01between the natural and the supernatural.
35:14The Caspian Sea has shaped the fortunes
35:17of Azerbaijan's capital city, Baku,
35:19thanks to the international power players who've crossed it
35:23and the natural riches it hides.
35:26For centuries, petrochemicals attracted fortune hunters to this land.
35:34The first oil well was drilled here in 1846
35:39and the industry took off.
35:42For this long, Azerbaijan was producing
35:45more than 50% of the world's oil.
35:51And the capital city boomed.
35:59My next treasure is the rich, historic centre of Baku.
36:05In the 1880s, fantastically wealthy oil tycoons,
36:09including local Haji Zeyn-el-Abdin Taghiyev,
36:13and foreigners, the Rothschilds and Nobel Brothers,
36:16commissioned flamboyant mansions and impressive public buildings.
36:21The population of the city mushroomed.
36:23They were all accommodated then in these elegant boulevards
36:27and Baku became known as the Paris of the East.
36:32But, in fact, Baku is a layer cake of history,
36:36with over 1,200 families still living in its medieval heart.
36:45Amongst the historic treats is the Maiden Tower,
36:4929 metres tall and steeped in legend and romance.
36:55One story goes that a king tried to force a maiden to marry him.
37:00She eventually accepted, on condition he built her a tower.
37:06Once completed, she threw herself from the top.
37:12If you manage to make it up to the top of the tower,
37:15you've basically done a kind of climb through history.
37:19So, right down at the bottom,
37:21the foundations were used as a Zoroastrian temple,
37:24so there was probably some kind of oil or gas flame burning inside.
37:28Then, as you make your way up, the walls start to become five metres thick
37:32because from the 12th century this place was used as a defensive tower.
37:36That's almost certainly why it's called the Maiden Tower,
37:39because the idea is that it was impregnable
37:42and people would have been held safely inside.
37:45But then, come the 18th and 19th centuries,
37:49this was mainly used as a kind of military observation point,
37:53obviously looking at attackers coming in from the Caspian Sea.
37:57And for the people of Baku, one of the worst times was in the 1720s
38:01when the Russian Empire, under Peter the Great, advanced here,
38:06bombarded the city and then made their way in.
38:12On the hill above the Maiden Tower is another architectural wonder,
38:16the Shirvan Shah's Palace.
38:22The Shirvan Shahs, one of the longest reigning dynasties in the Islamic world,
38:26made Baku their capital between the 12th and 16th centuries.
38:32Built out of local limestone, the complex includes a mosque,
38:3652 rooms and a mausoleum for the Shirvan Shah kings.
38:45Tucked away in the corner of the palace grounds, there's a peaceful sanctuary.
38:51MUSIC PLAYS
39:01Travellers still cross continents to visit this sacred tomb.
39:09So, this is known as the Dervishes' Tomb,
39:13but it's actually the final resting place of a man
39:18who was a Sufi scholar.
39:21And I should just say that as I've come in here, it's beautiful,
39:24because it smells of roses,
39:26because they leave rose oil here on his grave every day.
39:30He was a really fascinating, super, super intelligent man.
39:34He wasn't just a Sufi.
39:36Sufi is the kind of mystical form of Islam.
39:39He was also a philosopher.
39:42He came up with a sort of complex idea of how the world worked.
39:46And it makes total sense that he was sponsored by this dynasty,
39:50because this dynasty was all about the acquisition and the advance
39:55and the power of wisdom and ideas.
40:06In 1538, following 500 years of rule,
40:10the Shirvan Shah dynasty was overthrown
40:13and their palace and kingdom became a target of conquest for rival empires.
40:20First came the Safavids, then the Ottomans, and finally the Russians.
40:26This palace was attacked again and again over the centuries,
40:30but these are actually bullet holes,
40:32and these have been left here by Russian Bolsheviks
40:35at the time of the First World War.
40:44The historic centre of Baku is a reminder of how travellers
40:48and traders and merchants and power brokers
40:52have come here to exchange goods and ideas
40:55and also to play a geopolitical game of chess,
40:59but they've left behind a checkerboard
41:02of cultures and wonders and treasures.
41:07I'm travelling to the Karabakh region in western Azerbaijan,
41:12high in the rugged Caucasus mountain range.
41:18On the summit of this rock stands Shusha,
41:21a city with a rich and diverse cultural history dating back centuries.
41:27This cultural heritage is my next treasure.
41:32Access to this hidden city, emerging from decades of conflict,
41:37has been almost impossible for 30 years.
41:42Shusha was originally built in the 18th century
41:45by the great warrior Pana Ali Khan.
41:49From here, he controlled the region.
41:52Over time, the city has become renowned for its composers and poets.
41:58One of the most famous daughters of this region,
42:01in fact, a daughter of one of the rulers here,
42:04is this incredible woman called Natavan, who was a poetess,
42:08but she was also clearly a really feisty character,
42:11so she did things like provide water systems
42:14so that people had fresh water,
42:16and she sponsored literary and musical and philosophical salons
42:20that women, as well as men, could attend.
42:23Really, her standout gift to the world was her beautiful poetry,
42:28which talks a lot about love and friendship and humanism,
42:33but because she lost one of her sons, it's also tinged with sorrow.
42:38So just listen to this.
42:40Our parting has stolen my reason
42:43My soul has forgotten repose
42:46Behold how merciless fortune
42:49Has doomed me to endless woes
42:52I wonder why my cruel lover
42:54Will not have pity on me
42:56I burn in the flame of parting
42:59The beloved who lit it was he
43:06Don't you think it sort of feels appropriate to this landscape,
43:10which is so beautiful,
43:13but it is also touched with a kind of melancholy?
43:23The poets here are lauded like rock stars.
43:27This 18-metre-high mausoleum was built
43:31during the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic.
43:34It honours Mollah Panawagif,
43:37an 18th-century diplomat and pioneering poet
43:41who wrote about ordinary feelings and emotions
43:44rather than religion or abstract ideas.
43:48This place obviously still feels really passionate about its poetry,
43:52so look at this, somebody's bothered to come in
43:55and leave a rose on the poet's grave.
43:58And I wonder if it's partly because his words
44:01were really about kind of the everyman,
44:04they talked about everyday life,
44:07and surely that also has to be why the Soviets approved of him,
44:11you know, why, you know,
44:13why they erected this beautiful mausoleum,
44:16because he was a man who wrote
44:19about the trials and tribulations of the common man.
44:44This is the Jadir Duzu Plain.
44:47The name means horse racing field in Azerbaijani.
44:51It's where ancient Karabakh rulers
44:54hosted poetry and music festivals and games.
45:00Oh, so this is amazing to see.
45:02So this is basically a kind of natural wonder of the region,
45:05these are the Karabakh horses, and they've always been here
45:08and they've been written about,
45:10and they appear in this epic poetry and in paintings,
45:14and the myth about them is that they're so beautiful,
45:17God gave them to the world in the form of sunbeams.
45:22The Karabakh horse is prized internationally
45:25for its speed, stamina and temperament
45:28and is a symbol of the cultural figure of the region.
45:33Ballads and poetry written by women as well as men,
45:37are captured by this stunning landscape.
45:40Shusha's cultural heritage is a wonder,
45:44celebrating the diverse, vibrant influences
45:48that weave together here.
45:57It feels like there's nowhere else quite like Azerbaijan.
46:01If you think of its glittering palaces
46:05and the miracles of its mystical poetry,
46:08not to mention this incredible otherworldly landscape
46:11of the Caucasus,
46:13this is somewhere where the treasures of the earth
46:16have really shaped the human story
46:19and the course of history itself.
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