Icherisheher, the old city

Baku's old town is enclosed in twelfth-century walls, in the middle of a capital built on oil. It is still lived in: about three thousand people have their homes there.

The Maiden Tower, a twenty-nine-metre stone cylinder, is the most puzzling building in the city: its purpose is still argued over — watchtower, observatory, Zoroastrian temple. The fifteenth-century Palace of the Shirvanshahs occupies the high point, with its courtyard, mausoleum and sunken baths.