Shamakhi Tour

The first stop of the Shamakhi tour will be Mereze village. There you will visit the tomb of Diri Baba (a 15th-century mausoleum mosque called Diri-Baba located in front of the old cemetery). The architecture of this mausoleum harmoniously fits into the picturesque surroundings of the building—the landscape against the background of the rocks and the greenery of the trees. The building of the mausoleum is a masterpiece of the Shirvan School of Architecture. It is considered one of the works of art of ancient masters. The monument is protected by the state

Shamakhi Juma Mosque, one of the oldest and largest mosques in Azerbaijan, is said to have been founded in the 8th century. The famous Arab general Maslama ibn Abdul Malik, the brother of the Umayyad caliph Walid I (705-715), chose Shamakhi as his residence when he invaded the Caucasus and Dagestan. In those years, the Arab emirs repaired and strengthened the fortress of this ancient and rich city and carried out new construction works on its territory. Juma Mosque, which is the most significant and the only witness to these works, demonstrates how influential Shamakhi was at that time with its large dimensions and magnificent architecture.

The mosque was built in 743–744 years. The Shamakhi Juma Mosque is the oldest mosque in the South Caucasus after the Derbend Juma Mosque (built in 734). The mosque, which was restored several times in the Middle Ages, was destroyed during the Shamakhi earthquakes in 1856 and 1902 and was first restored by Gasim Bey Hajibababeyov and then by Iosif Ploshko. The last restoration works in the mosque, which was burned by Armenians in 1918, were carried out in 2010–2013 according to the order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.

The Yeddigunbaz tombs complex is a complex of tombs located in one of the three historical cemeteries in the city of Shamakhi and belonging to the period of the fall of the Shamakhi Khanate (beginning of the 19th century). Shirvan Khans and their family members were buried in the tombs. Four of the tombs included in the complex have reached our time.

A total of 22 tombs were discovered in the area of six tombs, 18 of which consist of sarcophagus-shaped chest tones and Stella-shaped headstones with inscriptions engraved on them. In the inscriptions on the stelae, the names of 19th-century rulers and other statesmen, including their family members, are mentioned.

The Astrophysical Observatory was established on November 17, 1959. The observatory is located in the northeast of the Great Caucasus mountains, 150 km from Baku, in the eastern part of Pirgulu mountain, at an altitude of 1435–1500 m above sea level.

Shamakhi Safari Park was created in accordance with the tasks in the “Strategic Road Map for the Development of the Specialized Tourism Industry in Azerbaijan”. For this purpose, 480 hectares of the 620 hectares of a mountain-forest area called Pirgulu, which is located in the territory of the Shamakhi region, an ecological reserve for wild animals, have been fenced according to international standards. 420 heads of noble deer, lynx, and mouflon of three species from farms in Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary were brought here and released into a specially protected area. As a result of breeding and veterinary measures, the number of these animals has almost doubled. So, in October 2017, there were 790 animals in the park, including 260 red deer, 250 mouflons, and 280 deer.