Baku

Baku grew up around a sheltered bay on a peninsula where oil and gas seep naturally from the ground, a phenomenon that drew fire-worshippers and travellers' reports long before the modern industry. A settlement existed by the early Middle Ages, and from the 12th century the Shirvanshahs, rulers of Shirvan, fortified it; repeated earthquakes at their inland capital of Shamakhi pushed the court towards the coast, and in the 15th century they built the palace that still stands at the top of the walled town. The Maiden Tower beside it is older and its purpose is still argued over.

The Safavids took the city, and after Persian power waned it became the seat of the Baku khanate, absorbed by the Russian Empire in the early 19th century. Commercial drilling began in the 1840s and 1870s, and within a generation the Absheron fields were producing a large share of the world's oil. The Nobel brothers, the Rothschilds and local millionaires such as Zeynalabdin Taghiyev built the mansions, theatres and boulevards outside the old walls, while workers lived in squalor in the oilfields, and the city became a centre of revolutionary politics.

From 1920 Baku was the Soviet Union's principal oil city, fuelling the war effort and later drilling offshore from Oil Rocks. On 20 January 1990 Soviet troops entering the city killed well over a hundred civilians, remembered as Black January, and independence followed in 1991. Contracts signed in 1994 and the pipeline to the Mediterranean opened a second boom, paying for the towers, seafront parks and international events — a Eurovision contest, European Games and a Formula One race — that have reshaped the city since.

Baku has long been the most cosmopolitan place in the Caucasus. The oil era drew Azerbaijanis, Russians, Armenians, Jews, Georgians, Persians and Europeans into the same streets, and something of that mixture survives in the city's Russian-speaking intelligentsia, its theatre and its comparatively liberal habits. Baku residents often distinguish themselves from the regions, and the local identity is urban, secular and proud of it.

Music runs deep. Mugham, the classical modal vocal art, is performed at a dedicated centre on the boulevard and taught at the music academy named after Uzeyir Hajibeyov, who wrote the first opera of the Muslim East here in 1908. Baku also has an unusual jazz history, from the pianist Vagif Mustafazadeh's fusion of jazz with mugham to a festival that still brings international players to the city. Chess is taken seriously — the city has produced grandmasters of world rank — and football and wrestling command the largest followings.

Everyday manners are Azerbaijani rather than European: guests are fed before anything is discussed, tea is offered immediately and repeatedly, elders are deferred to, and hospitality is competitive. Dress in the centre is modern and often formal. Novruz, in March, is the great annual occasion, with bonfires in courtyards, sprouted wheat on the table and trays of pastries; religious observance is generally quiet, and the mosques fill most at the two Eids.

About 2.3 million people live in greater Baku, roughly a quarter of the country's population, and the figure grows with internal migration from the regions. The economy rests on oil and gas and the state and financial institutions built around them, alongside construction, shipping, retail and a large tourism sector that draws heavily on visitors from the Gulf, Russia, Turkey and Iran. Public-sector employment is widespread, and many families also rely on money earned abroad.

Most people live in Soviet apartment blocks or in the newer towers and estates pushing out across the Absheron peninsula, with old courtyard housing surviving in the inner districts. The day starts late and runs late: schools and offices in the morning, long lunches, and evenings on the boulevard, where families walk until midnight through the summer. Weekends mean the Absheron beaches, a village garden or a drive into the hills at Shamakhi and Ismayilli.

The pressures people talk about are the cost and quality of housing, traffic that has outgrown the road network, the demolition of older neighbourhoods for redevelopment, water supply and air quality, and the narrowness of political and media life. Wind and heat shape the practical rhythm of the city, and much of public life moves indoors in the worst of August and out again in September.

Baku's cooking is the national repertoire at its most elaborate, shaped by Persian, Turkish and Russian influence and by the produce of the Absheron gardens. Plov is the centrepiece of any celebration: saffron rice steamed under a crust and served with a separate stew of lamb, chestnuts, dried apricots and plums, with shah plov baked inside a shell of thin bread. Dushbara, tiny dumplings in a clear broth eaten with vinegar and garlic, is a particular Baku favourite, as is piti, mutton and chickpeas baked in an individual clay pot.

Grilled food is everywhere: lamb rib and leg kebab, minced lyulya, liver in caul fat, and whole aubergines, peppers and tomatoes charred beside them for mangal salad. Dolma means stuffed vine leaves or stuffed vegetables; qutab are thin folded pancakes with greens, pumpkin or cheese. From the Caspian come kutum and other fish, grilled and dressed with narsharab, the thick sour pomegranate syrup — sturgeon, once a staple, is now scarce and protected.

The sweet table is its own subject. Baku pakhlava is cut in diamonds and layered with walnuts and saffron syrup; shekerbura are crescent pastries filled with ground nuts and sugar; and both appear in quantity at Novruz alongside gogal, flaky spiced buns. Absheron's gardens supply figs, saffron, olives and grapes, while Goychay pomegranates and the wines of Shamakhi and Ismayilli reach the city's markets and restaurants. Tea, black and in small glasses with jam, ends every meal and fills the hours between.