Utazófilmek, 14. rész: Baku | CC. English subtitle, Travel movies, chapter 14.: Baku, Azerbaijan

Hello, and kind greetings! I am in Azerbaijan now.

Concretely in Baku, the capital city.

I'm a little bit tired, because it was a long way here.

But it's totally worth!What I saw so far, was very beautiful.

In Baku the modern architecture is mixed with the ancient ruins and authentic local buildings.

I will show you these in my video.

I am walking in a park now, where is free wifi! So Azerbaijani infrastructure is well in front of us 🙂 And.

.

.

We will arrive into the harbor immediately.

This is what I wanted to show to you first.

So we will see the Caspian sea.

And it's harbor.

This is the biggest lake in the world.

So that's another milestone in my “Traveller career”.

I hope you will enjoy this travel movie 🙂 So this the bank of the Caspian sea.

A ship is just docking now.

We can see a stadium in the background.

I don't think that's the Olympic Stadium of Baku.

My trip to Azerbaijan it's actually because Hungary will play here.

The football game is in couple of days.

Today is Wednesday.

Hm, more exactly the game is on Saturday.

I am going home on Sunday.

So I let me some days for sightseeing.

But it will be not just city tour in Baku.

The National Park of Gobustan has pre-historic rock carvings.

It's well worth to go there! And there is another world-wide special sight, the mud-volcanos.

You can imagine a volcano which spits mud instead of fire.

No lavina, khmm, no lava from those volcanos 😀 I am talking bullsh*t, so tired I am :-)) So, they don't spit fire, they spit hot mud.

So, now I am just philosophizing, but I will show you those volcanos later in another video.

So this trip to Gobustan will be on Friday.

Until then I will do city-tour in Baku on my own.

So, this is what I told you in the beginning, lot of modern buildings here, look.

The sun is going down near the Parliament of Azerbaijan.

So we cannot really see from this angle the baroque beauty of this building.

It was built by the Soviets in 1952.

This is how I wanted to show you the contrast.

Modern skyscrapers and old buldings.

I didn't plan much for this first day, because I am very tired, it was a long trip.

But from tomorrow: full gas! 😀 Tomorrow I am gonna see Itcheri Sheheri, the old town of Baku.

So now I am just lurking in the park.

It's just a 3 km walk today.

It was a tough day yesterday in Istanbul.

I walked on foot 26 km.

I had only one day there to see much as possible.

I didn't want to miss anything.

I hope you will watch that travel movie, too.

If you didn't watch it yet 😀 So.

.

.

Now I'm just walking 🙂 It was funny to change money at the airport in Baku.

I got only bigger banknotes from the ATM: 20 manat.

The ticket-selling machine didn't accept such a big banknote.

So I asked some people there, if they can change a banknote of 20 manat.

They said: “no English!” :)) No English? Okay.

But nobody can change money? Then I went back inside of the airport.

And that wasn't a good idea.

Because when you enter the airport, you need to go through security control.

.

.

It was the police.

So, you need to scan all your belongings.

You need to take out everything of your pockets.

It was unpleasant to scan again, like I am departing somewhere.

But not the end of the world.

Inside of the airport I could change my big banknote.

I didn't know the ticket-selling machine will not accept big banknotes.

So.

.

.

This is how I got smaller money.

Food is very cheap here.

It's similar to prices back home in Hungary and in Cluj, Romania.

In the meanwhile I just found another modern futuristic building.

I don't know what is this, but I will check it on the map.

I just checked, it's a shopping mall.

On the left we can see the Flaming Towers.

I will go there tomorrow.

It's one of the symbols of Baku.

Well, if we would have shopping malls like this in my country.

.

.

Then maybe it would attract more tourists.

.

.

It's so interesting that the entrance looks like a big egg 😀 So, now from this angle you can see the Parliament building much better.

Sunset is over.

So, now we got to Itcheri Sheher, the old town of Baku.

These were the medieval walls of the city.

This was the residence of the shahs.

Let's check it out from inside.

Until now the streets are very tiny.

We can't really say these are streets, but they got street names.

It's a real labyrinth.

You can get lost between these tiny streets.

But I can still navigate with my GPS.

So I still hope to find the entrance of the palace of the shah.

This is not the entrance, that's sure.

The view is not bad from here.

It's no bad direction here 🙂 So, I could find the entrance.

This is the palace of the shah.

I hope they will let me enter.

It was in Istanbul that I woke early to avoid big crowds.

.

.

Then it was all closed till 1 PM.

You can see the Flaming Towers from here, too.

I told you about it.

Inside it's an exhibition.

It's a museum.

Lots of carpets and swords.

Lot of paintings of the period of the shahs.

I don't know the musical instruments.

This is harp.

But I don't know this one.

Very interesting Arabic female necklace The Quran.

I don't know what is this, it should be some modern art stuff.

The inner castle is very beautiful.

I mean, inside of Itcheri Sheher.

I see, Azerbaijani people already warming up for the big football game on Saturday against us :)) I hope the technique of the National football players will be like this here.

I read about the story of this baroque building.

In the beginning of the 20th century there was an Azerbaijani baron with an unspeakable name.

He lost his son in leukemia.

So he asked a famous Polish architect to build a memorial building for him.

And after this huge palace was finished, the baron donated it to the State.

And now.

.

.

It's the building of the National Academy of Science.

So.

.

.

It's not allowed to go inside.

But it's still a nice sight even from the outside.

This is the unspeakable name of the Azerbaijani baron.

This is the Maiden Tower.

It was originally built in the 12th century.

I don't know if some of it's parts is still that old.

The Maiden Tower is on the list of UNESCO World Heritage.

As the palace of the shah, and Itcheri Sheher, too.

Lot of sellers on the street.

They sell mainly carpets.

It's local specialty.

They sell some souvenirs, too.

Some of the them are old Soviet stuff with hammer and sickle.

And some brooch.

Well.

.

.

We are going upstairs.

I hope there is not a long queue.

Well, that's gonna be a big party! Especially because they are so loud! The entrance fee was 15 manat.

Same as to the palace of the shah.

I'm not really happy for that.

10 manat = 5.

5 Euro So we can see sightseeing is not cheap here.

On the other hand, food is very cheap.

Here are so many people, I will get headache until I get up.

I am 194 cm tall.

I doesn't fit to this place.

Maybe.

.

.

Maybe I will regret this.

On the “road”there are some little.

.

.

Stops.

Where I can get my back straight again.

I don't know why other tourists are yelling so loud.

It's not a big deal to climb this stairway.

I hope it's worth for the view.

We will have a nice view to the Caspian Sea for sure.

At the entrance they said it will be a museum.

I don't want to use bad words.

.

.

But this museum it's not worth the price.

.

.

It's almost nothing to see! To ask 8.

5 Euro for this.

.

.

It's too much for the panorama.

It is how it is 🙂 Now I understand the price.

I just found a spearhead from the 1st century BC! :)) I will let you decide if it's really so old or just scam.

Sorry for being ironic.

Another small room.

We can see a virtually spinning vase! Wow, wonderful! :)) Okay, I stopped to be ironic.

We are at the top.

The view is nice.

The cacophony is not that nice.

Going downstairs I found a virtual book.

Which I can scroll with my hand.

It doesn't get ruck.

And back.

.

.

AMAZING :O 😀 This place is called the “mini Venice”.

You can even find small gondolas.

And you can seal with them.

I am wondering how creative they are! In fact, it's an attractive place for tourists! And good business idea, obviously! Actually such a business can be done everywhere! We should try it in Cluj and in Budapest! The water is beautiful and clear, I like that.

But it doesn't attract me to sail romantically alone 🙂 It was again the same story.

.

.

They believed me Russian.

.

.

They started to talk to me in Russian.

Then I told them: sorry, I don't speak Russian.

But they didn't understand, so they kept talking Russian to me.

In the meanwhile I watch my steps, because I am walking on stairs.

After that I tried to speak Russian: I don't know if it was correct or not, this is what I know in Russian: I don't speak Russian :)) They started smiling, and nid-nod, but they didn't say a thing.

In my opinion, simply the idea to have an Azerbaijani Venice with gondola, it's amazing and funny! And this huge building in the front of us.

.

.

.

which has a carpet-cupola, it's a huge carpet museum I am still thinking about it, should I visit it, is it interesting? They say they have more than 4000 carpets inside.

And it presents the whole.

.

.

the whole story, the whole culture why is Azerbaijani carpet so famous It's not Persian carpet, that's in Iran.

But.

.

.

Here in the Middle-East it's very famous.

So I decided to not inspect all those 4000 carpets :))Maybe I would last for 10 carpets :)) It's unbelievable what kind of buildings they have! I didn't want to say something stupid.

But as I remember Azerbaijan is very reach because of the oil.

Otherwise they wouldn't have money for such an infrastructure.

And this is just a simple shopping mall, again.

.

.

If we would have buildings like this.

.

.

.

Maybe we could have more tourists.

.

.

Maybe in the future.

.

.

Or maybe if we would find the black gold on the Hortobágy! 😀 Then we could have a chance! 😀 From this angle we can see better, the carpet museum it's a carpet! This is a funicular! Which takes us to the top of the hill.

Baku is really a modern city! We can see on this monument that Azerbaijan have a good relationship with Turkey.

Azeri language is similar to Turkish.

It's in the same language family.

It's no English sign about this monument.

So I don't know what is it, it can be something religious.

It was worth the ride to see this panorama.

It's the top of the hill.

Amazing view.

We were there recently.

That's the carpet museum.

The rolled carpet.

And this is the new shopping mall, which we just saw.

The Baku eye.

Ferris wheel of Baku.

The 28th May Square.

Azerbaijan gained it's freedom on the 28th May from the Soviet Union.

The square was named after that event.

And now we can see why these towers are called Flaming Towers.

They have red enlightening now.

But it changes it's color, yesterday was different.

And now it really looks like in flame.

This is the Taza Pir Mosque.

It has an interesting story.

A violent story.

I don't know if you remember the History class about the 1917 red revolution in the Soviet Union.

The Bolshevik people were damaging this mosque.

And later, after it was decided that Azerbaijan will not be independent, but part of the Soviet Union.

.

.

they transformed it to a theater, and after that to a bar.

.

.

You can imagine.

.

.

.

If a Catholic or Protestant church would turn into a pub.

.

.

how much we would like it.

.

.

🙁 It was the same bad feeling for Azerbaijani.

.

.

The red Leninist radicals turned it to a theater, then to a pub.

.

.

This is how the communists tried to eliminate the national and religious feelings from the locals.

Our parents and grandparents could tell similar stories.

Let's go inside! No loudspeakers here on the minaret.

Like everywhere in Azerbaijan.

So it doesn't wake me up at 5 AM, like in Istanbul.

.

.

So that is not so serious here in Azerbaijan.

We can see that.

The women are dressing like in Europe, and not covering all their body with the long black burkha.

Istanbul was more serious dressing.

In Azerbaijan they dress like European.

Even girls and women.

(Well, not all of them.

) They don't cover their shoulder.

And nobody were angry on them like in Istanbul.

So it's different here.

For us it's weird, because it's the same religion.

It shouldn't depend on the country.

Hungary won the football game 3-1.