Martyrs Lane, Baku

Martyrs' Lane, Baku - Baku 's main memorial to those killed in the 1990 clashes with the Soviet Union 's Red Army in Azerbaijan 's struggle for independence, and also some of those soldiers "martyred" in the Nagorno-Karabakh war with Armenia . > 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: The central section of the Martyrs' Lane complex ("Shahidler Xiyabani" in Azeri) serves as a memorial to those who perished when the Soviet Red Army intervened in Azerbaijan , by marching into Baku, declaring a state of emergency, in order to heavy-handedly crush the nascent independence movement that had formed here. The death toll of the shootings numbers between nearly one hundred, to possibly as many as 300. The intervention soon backfired for the Soviet Union, as it ended any hope of reconciliation and preservation of the Azeri SSR or Azerbaijan remaining part of the USSR , which was heading towards collapse anyway. Instead the independence movement was strengthened in Azerbaijan, just as elsewhere in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and eventually also in Central Asia. Azerbaijan declared its independence in October 1991, two months ahead of the official dissolution of the USSR in December of that year. The ones buried on this hill above Baku are seen as the heroes and martyrs of the independence struggle. So this is a very important place in the Azeri national psyche. Soon there were to be more dead in the years that followed – namely when the war over Nagorno-Karabakh took its toll. And many of the Azeri Karabakh war dead were buried here to as martyrs, parallel to their 1990 predecessors.