Our guest: Baku: Multicultural city

Several millennia old, the fortified city of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, retains traces of the presence of the Zoroastrian, Sassanian, Arabic, Persian, Shirvani, Ottoman and Russian peoples. The modern city, born from the first oil boom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, has an equally eclectic cultural heritage. Because of its bay and its proximity to caravan routes, the city has always been crossed by multiple currents. The result is an extraordinary harmonious diversity, reflected both in its architecture and its cosmopolitan spirit.