After Georgia, completing the Caucasus had always felt unfinished. We had spoken about Armenia and Azerbaijan in the same breath for years, but plans slipped — first delayed, then quietly set aside. It was only in 2022 that we finally made it to the second of the three: Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan sits at a junction that is both geographical and cultural. The Caspian Sea closes it in from the east, while borders with Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Iran pull it in different directions. That sense of overlap is not abstract; it shows up quickly, sometimes awkwardly, sometimes with confidence. For us, the appeal lay in that variety — a country where landscapes, histories, and moods shift without warning. We began, inevitably, in Baku.

Our first stop was along the seafront, at the Azerbaijan Carpet Museum. The building itself announces its presence — modern, curved, shaped like a rolled carpet — but inside, the pace changes. Carpets here are not decorative objects; they are language, memory, and regional identity. We moved without urgency, noticing patterns more than dates, colours before chronology. Neither of us is particularly drawn to museums, but this one held us longer than expected. It felt rooted rather than performative, concerned with continuity rather than display.

From the boulevard, we went up to Upland Park, choosing the funicular instead of the climb. The ride was brief and unremarkable — which seemed appropriate. At the top, Baku opened out: the bay, the city stretching back from the water, glass and concrete rising where older lines once held. The shift in scale was immediate.

One edge of the park is occupied by the Alley of Martyrs, a space that resists casual movement. This is where those killed during Black January in 1990 and in the first Nagorno-Karabakh war are remembered. It is not a loud place. People walk slowly, voices lower themselves instinctively. Nearby stand the parliament building and the Flame Towers — symbols of modern Baku rising almost indifferently beside memory. The contrast is sharp, and seemingly intentional.

Later in the afternoon, we turned towards the Icherisheher, Baku’s medieval core. Inside the walls, the city contracts. Streets narrow, directions blur, and movement becomes instinctive rather than planned. This is not a sealed historic quarter; people live here, work here, sit in doorways and pass through the same alleys daily. Shops, homes, mosques, caravanserais, cafés — everything overlaps.

Walking through Icherisheher felt less like visiting a site and more like acclimatising. The Maiden Tower rises quietly among the lanes, cylindrical and self-contained, its origins unresolved and perhaps better left that way. Nearby, the Palace of the Shirvanshahs spreads outward through courtyards and chambers that once held power without excess. Mosques, inns, and small museums appear without ceremony, some restored, others simply absorbed into everyday life.

As evening approached, the Old City softened. Shops half-closed, conversations lingered, and tea appeared everywhere. In Azerbaijan, tea is not an occasion but a constant. Men sit for hours in chaykhanas, talking, playing backgammon, letting time pass without apology. Sugar is taken differently here — a cube held briefly under the tongue, tea sipped through it. Lemon, sometimes jam. Ritual without performance.

When we finally stepped back beyond the walls, Baku felt marginally more legible — not explained, but introduced. It hadn’t tried to charm or persuade. It had simply allowed us to walk, observe, and sit with it for a while. For a first day, that felt enough.