Happy World Book [and Copyright] Day! I started writing this blog post way back in October right after we left the Caucasus, but it appears I never finished it. Given today’s bookish holiday, now seemed like the perfect time to finally share!
Overall, the Caucasus offer a surprising wealth of book tourism opportunities. (I only say “surprising” because I really didn’t know anything about the region before visiting other than Georgia has great food and wine and Armenia is widely considered to be the oldest Christian country in the world.) One of the highlights, though, was a wonderful place in Baku (the capital city of Azerbaijan) called the Baku Book Center. It was even more magical because we almost didn’t visit; we only heard about it because we struck up a conversation with our tour guide.
On our first full day in Azerbaijan, we decided to join the Baku Original Walking Free Tour. We love free walking tours, but we decided on this one specifically because it said it would visit the hangouts of Ali & Nino, a tale of star-crossed lovers set in Baku. Our tour was great, but about an hour in, our guide still hadn’t mentioned Ali and Nino. When he pointed out a prestigious school for girls, I asked him if that was the school Nino attended in the novel.
“You’ve read Ali & Nino?!” He lit up right away. “We read it in school here, but most of our visitors have never heard of it.”
I explained to him that I was a librarian who enjoys reading books set in the places I visit, and that’s how I found out about Ali & Nino. It sounds like the guide had stopped mentioning the book on tours because most visitors hadn’t heard of it, but once I mentioned it, he started pointing out all kinds of stuff to me: the park where Ali and Nino would meet, the school Ali attended, and more. At the end of the tour, he told me as a librarian, I should visit the Baku Book Center. I’d never heard of this book center, so I added it to our Google Map, and Jonathan and I visited a few days later.
Wow! Boy, am I glad we started talking about books on our tour, because otherwise I would have missed this gem. First off, the staircase when we walked in the building was magical and jaw-dropping. It was covered in flowers and–most importantly–devoid of people! It was everything I had dreamed Livraria Lello would be (but we were sorely disappointed, remember?).
The Baku Book Center is primarily a bookstore, but it also has public computers, interactive displays, a cafe, and a retail space for non-book items (clothing, stationery, souvenirs, etc.). There were plenty of comfortable chairs and cozy corners to snuggle up in (who wouldn’t want to read by that window pictured above left??), and it didn’t look like the staff minded if you sat in a chair all day and read their books, so in some ways, it was more like a public library than most bookstores I’ve visited.
In addition to its retail spaces and reading rooms, the center also functions as an event space for educational and cultural activities, including presentations, book signings and readings, various classes and courses, youth activities, and “events with participation of international organizations and diplomatic missions.”
According to its website:
“The main purpose of the Baku Book Center is to support reading motivation and to encourage people to read books.”
In addition to all these fantastic offerings, the building’s interior was simply gorgeous.
The center opened in September 2018, so it is still fairly new, and it includes books in a variety of languages (including English!). As I mentioned, the center was practically empty when we visited (in October 2019). While I hope it always remains a quiet and relaxing space for bibliophiles to enjoy books and reading, I also hope it is doing enough business to stay open, because this is one sparkling gem the literary world does not want to lose.
I joked with Jonathan that it was a good thing we visited the Baku Book Center on our last day in Azerbaijan, or I might have spent our whole time inside this glorious building. (Okay, maybe it wasn’t really a joke….)
If you ever visit Baku, please visit the Baku Book Center, and then tell me all about it so I can live vicariously through you!
I love that rusty (or rusty-colored) old mailbox on the wall. Those were standard (for Soviet Union) mail boxes many years ago and one could always tell if anything is inside by just looking at the holes.
How neat! The mailboxes all around Baku were painted so beautifully: https://www.instagram.com/p/B366xDAAU-6/
Looks like you had a great time. Great trip. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for reading! It was pretty special.