Baku, Azerbaijan

Baku - darkometer rating : 2 - The capital city of Azerbaijan and the nation's travel hub. For the dark tourist, there's the dark anti-aesthetics of all the industrial wastelands around the area, as well as some natural bizarreness in the form of mud volcanoes, both doable as day trips from Baku. And the city itself also offers a couple of interesting sights > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: Baku – the name alone conjures up ideas of oriental mystique and exoticness. In part that is justified. But more than living up to such a conception of the old Orient, it is today a modern place, now by far the largest city of the Caucasus and constantly getting larger still; currently estimated population: over 2 million. It's a boom town, fuelled by oil riches. This is accompanied by a wild building boom – with new prestigious high-rises mushrooming all around the city and altering the skyline constantly. All this may obscure the fact that it's also a place of much ancient history, having been vaguely on the Silk Route, if you count the sea route across the Caspian, and frequently fought over by neighbouring empires, especially Persian and Russia . It remained a fairly small place, however, until the onset of the oil industry – for which it was the most significant birthplace (see under Absheron peninsula ). In spite of the oil riches – and at the same time because of this – Baku continued to be kicked about by outside powers. The First World War and the Russian October Revolution brought turmoil also to Baku, including massacres carried out by Bolsheviks and Armenians – and the British had some involvement as well (see Martyrs' Lane ).