Memory in stone
Castles and villages
Absheron has been inhabited for thousands of years. In the Middle Ages its villages were guarded by keep-castles — tall stone towers where residents took shelter during raids from sea and land. Many of them survive to this day.
These castles were built of the local pale limestone; they served as watchtowers, as refuges and as symbols of the power of local rulers.
Together with mosques, baths and the underground cisterns called ovdans, they form the unique look of an Absheron village — austere, stony and adapted to life on a windy, waterless land.
Mardakan castles
Mardakan preserves two castles — a round and a rectangular tower of the 13th–14th centuries, among the finest examples of Absheron’s defensive architecture.
Ramana castle
A mighty tower on a rock in the village of Ramana, one of the most picturesque castles of the peninsula, surrounded by old oil fields.
Nardaran castle
A 14th-century castle and palace in Nardaran — an ancient village known both for its shrines and for the longevity of its people.
Mosques
Old village mosques with minarets — the spiritual centres of Absheron’s settlements, many active for centuries.
Ovdans
Underground cisterns called ovdans, with domes and stairways, saved the arid villages from drought for centuries.
Stone villages
Buzovna, Mardakan, Nardaran, Qala — villages that have kept the traditional Absheron architecture of pale stone.
RamanaCastle on a rock
The Ramana tower
The castle in Ramana rises on a rocky base and is visible from afar. Like the other keeps of Absheron, it served both as a watchtower and as a refuge for the villagers in dangerous times.
Today old oil derricks surround it, and a single frame brings together the two Absherons: the medieval and the industrial.
Villages
The old villages of Absheron
Qala
A village with an open-air ethnographic reserve, gathering the ancient dwellings, tools and petroglyphs of Absheron.
Nardaran
One of the oldest villages, with a 14th-century castle and a revered shrine; known for its gardens and its long-lived people.
Buzovna and Mardakan
Seaside villages with mosques, baths and dachas, which became favourite summer retreats for the people of Baku.