Maiden Tower

Baku, Azerbaijan's capital on the Caspian Sea, keeps its medieval heart inside the walls of the Old City, Icherisheher, and the Maiden Tower is its emblem. The squat stone cylinder rises about 29.5 m on the south-eastern side of the Old City, with a diameter of 16.5 m at the base. It has eight floors, each covered by a shallow stone vault with a central opening, and a staircase runs up inside the thickness of the walls, which are about 5 m thick at the bottom. A massive buttress projects from the tower toward the east. The tower appears on Azerbaijan's banknotes and coins, and together with the Shirvanshahs' Palace and the walled city it has been a World Heritage Site since 2000.

No one agrees on when or why it was built. A Kufic inscription on the south wall names Masud ibn Davud, a 12th-century architect, and most of the present structure is generally dated to that century. Some historians argue that its foundations and lower storeys are far older, from the 4th to 6th centuries, pointing to differences in the stone. Others see it as a Zoroastrian fire temple, or as an astronomical tower, noting that the buttress faces the equinox sunrise and that its rows of stone projections number 30 and 31, like the days of a month. Excavations in the 1960s showed that it stands on sloping rock, once close to the sea, with wooden beams in its foundations that may have helped it withstand earthquakes. A well about 21 m deep, reached from the second floor, supplied fresh water.

The name has inspired as many legends as theories, with around twenty stories linked to it. The best known is a Zoroastrian-flavoured tale of a fire-haired young woman who saved Baku from a besieging army. These legends have fed Azerbaijani art: Afrasiyab Badalbeyli wrote the ballet Maiden Tower in 1940, and it was staged again in a new version in 1999. The tower was strengthened under Russian rule in 1806.

Inside, a museum traces the history of Baku. The main reward is the view from the roof: over the lanes and minarets of the Old City, the seafront Boulevard and the wide sweep of Baku Bay. There is a small gift shop at the entrance.

Getting there

The tower is in central Baku, inside the Old City walls, near the seafront Boulevard. Icherisheher metro station on the Red Line is nearby, with its exit on Istiglaliyyat Street. The nearest airport is Heydar Aliyev International (GYD), about 22 km away.