Handpicked experience · Baku
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The famous fire temple was built by Indian merchants and its natural flame was extinguished by industry in 1969 — but the hillside up the road has burned by itself for centuries.
A temple whose inscriptions are in Sanskrit and Gurmukhi
An honest account of a flame that industry put out
A slope that has burned unaided since medieval accounts
A landmark of contemporary architecture, from the kerb
A loop short enough for an arrival or departure day
A three-hour loop from Baku onto the Absheron peninsula: the fire temple at Surakhani, the burning hillside at Yanardag, and an external stop at the Heydar Aliyev Center on the way back.
Ateshgah is usually described as a Zoroastrian fire temple, and the ground may well have been sacred long before, but the pentagonal building you walk into was raised in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries largely by Indian traders.
Hindu and Sikh merchants of the Multani community worked the Caspian trade routes and settled here, and the inscriptions carved above the cells around the courtyard are in Sanskrit and Gurmukhi, with one in Persian. The cells housed ascetics who lived on the site. So the most famous fire temple in the Caucasus is, in its standing form, a piece of Indian religious architecture built by a merchant diaspora two thousand miles from home — which the building tells you itself, if you read the doorways.
This is worth knowing before you arrive rather than after. The temple burned on a natural gas vent for centuries, and that vent was exhausted in 1969 by the industrial extraction going on all around the peninsula.
The flame you see today is fed by gas piped in from Baku's mains. The site is completely open about this, and it does not make the place a fake — the temple, the inscriptions and the cells are entirely genuine, and the vent burned for as long as anybody had recorded. But the fire is a reconstruction of a natural phenomenon that human industry put out, and that is a more interesting fact than the one the brochures usually offer.
Yanardag is not piped. Gas seeps continuously out of a sandstone slope and burns along a strip a few metres wide, and it has done so for as long as there are records of the place — travellers have been writing about the burning ground of Absheron since the medieval period.
The flames run a couple of metres high and never go out, including in rain and snow, which is when they look most extraordinary. Absheron has always been like this: gas and oil so close to the surface that the ground itself catches, and it is the reason for every fire cult, flame emblem and burning-mountain story attached to this country.
The Heydar Aliyev Center is seen from outside on the return. It was designed by Zaha Hadid as a single continuous white surface, with the walls, roof and plaza flowing into one another and effectively no sharp corners anywhere in the envelope.
It photographs unusually well, and it is very hard to judge its size until somebody walks in front of it.
Three hours is a tight loop, so this works well on an arrival or departure day when a full excursion will not fit.
Yanardag is exposed and windy, and the flames throw real heat, so stand upwind. The Heydar Aliyev Center is an exterior stop on this route; going inside needs its own visit and ticket. Modest dress is appropriate at the temple, which remains a place of significance to visitors from India.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Largely Indian traders. Hindu and Sikh merchants of the Multani community settled here on the Caspian trade routes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Living quarters. Ascetics stayed on the site for extended periods, and the small rooms opening onto the yard are where they slept.
Not any more. The gas vent that fed it was exhausted in 1969 by industrial extraction on the peninsula, and the fire is now supplied from Baku's mains.
It functions as a museum, but it retains real significance for visitors from India, which is worth bearing in mind while you are inside.
There is a viewing area at a fixed distance. That is close enough to feel the heat on your face without any effort.
No, including in rain and snow, which is when it looks most striking.
Gas and oil sit close enough to the surface that the ground itself catches. Every fire cult and flame emblem in the country traces back to it.
Not on this route. It is an exterior photo stop; the interior needs its own visit and ticket.