Wednesday, February 25, 2009

ARCHITECTURE: Baku. Whole historic district will be lost... (blog.novruzov.az)

Nowadays, the government has decided to build a Winter Boulevard between Heydar Aliyev Palace (former Republican Palace) and Fuzuli Square. Therefore, almost a whole historic district is going to be razed to the ground. The area to be demolished is significant enough - it comprises the northern edge of Baku's historic Jewish quarter, and historic and notorious Fuzuli street (former Basin or Balakhanskaya Ulitsa of pre-Soviet age) which led to more historic an more notorious Kubinka (Guba Square - now Fuzuli Square). My friend Rufat had a post about Jewish Quarter (though he exaggerated its boundaries in his map):

If you want to feel spirit of that Baku of the end of XIX and the beginning of XX century [The era of first oil boom - I'd rather call that age Bakuvian Belle Époque-A.S.N], I recommend you to wander through this neighbourhood in a silent evening. And often you could find true pearls of architecture which solely wait for being demolished and replaced by an ugly skyscraper.

Yesterday I took another walk through Shamsi Badalbayli street (for my previous walk see this post), another street to be demolished and took some pictures there. The neighbourhood is in agony and the residents are furious - one old woman even tried to lynch me literally for taking picture of her to-be-demolished house.

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