Azerbaijan

The land was Zoroastrian before it was Muslim — the name is often linked to fire, and natural gas seeps have burned on its hillsides for millennia. It was ruled from Persia for long stretches, with local dynasties such as the Shirvanshahs, whose palace still stands in Baku's Old City. In the early nineteenth century the Russian Empire absorbed the northern khanates, splitting historic Azerbaijan along a line that still leaves a large Azerbaijani population in northwestern Iran.

Baku's first oil boom, around 1900, made the city a cosmopolitan boomtown producing a large share of the world's oil, with fortunes built by the Nobels and Rothschilds. The short-lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic of 1918–1920 was the first secular parliamentary republic in the Muslim world and an early adopter of women's suffrage, before the Red Army ended it. Soviet rule lasted until 1991.

Since independence, the defining issue has been Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly-Armenian region inside Azerbaijan's borders. After losing control of it and surrounding districts in a war in the early 1990s, Azerbaijan retook most of the territory in a 44-day war in 2020 and completed the takeover in a one-day offensive in September 2023, after which the region's Armenian population left. The country has been ruled by the Aliyev family since 1993.

Azerbaijani culture layers Turkic and Persian traditions over a strong secular Soviet inheritance. The population is majority Shia Muslim, but religious observance is light in the cities, headscarves are uncommon, and alcohol is freely available. Hospitality is elaborate and food-centred, and guests are pressed to eat and drink well beyond comfort.

Tea is the social ritual. It is served strong and black in small pear-shaped armudu glasses, taken with jam, sugar, and sweets, and the çayxana tea house is a fixture of every town. Mugham, a modal, improvised classical vocal music recognised by UNESCO, and the intricate craft of carpet-weaving are the classic cultural markers.

Novruz, the spring new-year festival with roots in Zoroastrianism, is the biggest celebration of the year, marked with bonfires, jumping over flames, sprouted wheat grass, and trays of pastries. Chess has a strong following, and Baku has hosted Formula 1 street races since 2016.

About a quarter of the population lives in Greater Baku, a city of oil-boom mansions, Soviet blocks, and a glassy new skyline curving around the bay, with the pedestrianised Old City and a seaside boulevard at its heart. The rest of the country is regional towns and farming villages on the plains and in the Caucasus and Talysh foothills.

The state and the economy are built on oil and gas, exported through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline, and the wealth is unevenly shared. Many families rely on relatives working in Russia or Turkey. Outside the capital, life is slower and more traditional, organised around agriculture — tea and citrus in the southeast, hazelnuts and livestock in the north, grain and cotton on the plains.

Politics is tightly controlled, with no meaningful opposition or independent press, and public life carries a strong element of state ceremony around the ruling family.

Azerbaijani cooking is fragrant and rice-heavy, close to Persian and Turkish kitchens. The celebratory centrepiece is plov — saffron rice with a crisp base, served alongside stews of lamb with chestnuts and dried fruit. Kebabs, both minced lülə and cubed tikə, are grilled over vine cuttings and eaten with flatbread and a plate of raw herbs.

Soups are substantial: piti, a mutton-and-chickpea broth baked and served in individual clay crocks in Sheki, and dovga, a warm yoghurt soup with herbs and rice. Qutab (thin stuffed flatbreads), dolma (stuffed vine leaves or vegetables), and dushbara (tiny dumplings in broth) are everyday dishes.

Pomegranates are a national symbol, eaten fresh and reduced to the tart narsharab sauce for grilled fish and meat. Sheki is famous for its layered, nut-filled halva, quite unlike the Middle Eastern kind, and every meal ends with black tea.

Baku's walled Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, holds the enigmatic Maiden Tower and the Palace of the Shirvanshahs, and is ringed by oil-boom architecture and the three sail-shaped Flame Towers. Nearby, Zaha Hadid's white, wave-like Heydar Aliyev Center is the landmark of the modern city.

Gobustan, south of the capital, is another World Heritage Site: thousands of prehistoric rock carvings on a hillside, next to a field of gurgling mud volcanoes — Azerbaijan has more of them than any other country. On the Absheron peninsula, Yanar Dağ is a slope of natural gas that has burned for centuries, and the Ateshgah is a temple built around an eternal flame once tended by Hindu and Zoroastrian pilgrims.

In the Caucasus foothills to the northwest, Sheki has a summer palace decorated with coloured shebeke lattice windows, old caravanserais, and a walkable historic centre, all UNESCO-listed. Higher up, the stone villages of Xınalıq, Lahıc, and Quba sit among the peaks, and the far southeast around Lankaran is green with tea gardens and citrus.