Asia

[Visited: February 2022]

We drive the wide highways through the modern city centre of Baku, flanked by daring architecture that gives the Azeri capital its unique skyline and landmark buildings. Soon after leaving the highway behind us, we find ourselves in rather nondescript outskirts of the city. We take turns, drive roundabouts, and the road to the fire temple of Atashgah is not immediately clear. We end up driving narrow streets that seem abandoned. The contrast with the flashy city centre couldn't be bigger. We spot the walls fo the temple; we are close to our goal. When we finally park our car, we find out that most of the shops that line the entrance of the fire temple are closed. We enter the Atashgah Fire Temple through the main gate, which has calligraphy in stone above it.
Inside, we find a courtyard. In the middle, we see a square building, with openings on all sides. Inside, on a stone platform, a fire is burning. We see circular platforms on which fires are burning as well. The courtyard is flanked by buildings with rooms. They turn out to have exhibitions relating to the history of the fire temple. The tradition of fire temples comes from Persia and India. We see proof of both: colourful Persian drawings, and a Hindu statue with light projecting the statue enlarged on the stone wall. The fire temple is Zoroastrian in origin, and this particular one was an important place of worship for Zoroastrians for centuries. The abundance of gas made having fire here an easy feat. When the importance of the Silk Road diminished at the end of the 19th century, the Atashgah fire temple lost importance as well.
In 1888, the family of Russian Czar Alexander III visited the temple. But it lost importance as a place of worship. For decades, the temple was abandoned, until it was reconstructed and recognised as an important cultural and religious place in 1964. It has been rebuilt, and although we didn't see any worshippers (and I would have been curious to see a religious service in this temple), the fires are kept ablaze, and the temple receives thousands of visitors every year, both worshippers and people wanting to learn more about Zoroastrianism and the cult of the fire temple in this country of gas and oil. Close to the fire temple, we find a good place to have dinner, and drive to the fire mountain which turns out to be a big disappointment. We get seriously stuck in Baku traffic and take several hours to reach the old town again.

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Atashgah Fire Temple > Azerbaijan > Asia

[Visited: February 2022]

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