(CNN) — “This fireplace has burned 4,000 years and by no means stopped,” says Aliyeva Rahila. “Even the rain coming right here, snow, wind — it by no means stops burning.”
Forward, tall flames dance restlessly throughout a 10-meter stretch of hillside, making a sizzling day even hotter.
A facet impact of the nation’s plentiful pure gasoline reserves, which typically leak to the floor, Yanar Dag is considered one of a number of spontaneously occurring fires to have fascinated and frightened vacationers to Azerbaijan over the millennia.
It is why the nation earned the moniker the “land of fireside.”
Historical faith
Such fires have been as soon as plentiful in Azerbaijan, however as a result of they led to a discount of gasoline strain underground, interfering with industrial gasoline extraction, most have been snuffed out.
Yanar Dag is without doubt one of the few remaining examples, and maybe essentially the most spectacular.
At one time they performed a key position within the historic Zoroastrian faith, which was based in Iran and flourished in Azerbaijan within the first millennium BCE.
For Zoroastrians, hearth is a hyperlink between people and the supernatural world, and a medium by which non secular perception and knowledge will be gained. It is purifying, life-sustaining and an important a part of worship.
As we speak, most guests who arrive on the no-frills Yanar Dag guests’ middle come for the spectacle somewhat than non secular achievement.
The expertise is most spectacular at evening, or in winter. When snow falls, the flakes dissolve within the air with out ever touching the bottom, says Rahila.
Regardless of the claimed antiquity of the Yanar Dag flames — some argue that this specific hearth might solely have been ignited within the Fifties — it is a lengthy 30-minute drive north from the middle of Baku simply to see it. The middle affords solely a small cafe and there is not a lot else within the space.
Ateshgah Fireplace Temple
For a deeper perception into Azerbaijan’s historical past of fireside worship, guests ought to head east of Baku to Ateshgah Fireplace Temple.
“Since historic occasions, they suppose that [their] god is right here,” says our information, as we enter the pentagonal complicated which was constructed within the seventeenth and 18th century by Indian settlers in Baku.
Fireplace rituals at this website date again to the tenth century or earlier. The title Ateshgah comes from the Persian for “residence of fireside” and the centerpiece of the complicated is a cupola-topped altar shrine, constructed upon a pure gasoline vent.
A pure, everlasting flame burned right here on the central altar till 1969, however nowadays the fireplace is fed from Baku’s predominant gasoline provide and is simply lit for guests.
The temple is related to Zoroastrianism nevertheless it’s as a Hindu place of worship that its historical past is best documented.
Retailers and ascetics
Constructed like a caravanserai-style vacationers’ inn, the complicated has a walled courtyard surrounded by 24 cells and rooms.
These have been variously utilized by pilgrims, passing retailers (whose donations have been an important supply of earnings) and resident ascetics, a few of whom submitted themselves to ordeals similar to mendacity on caustic quicklime, carrying heavy chains, or retaining an arm in a single place for years on finish.
The temple fell out of use as a spot of worship within the late nineteenth century, at a time when the event of the encircling oil fields meant that veneration of Mammon was gaining a stronger maintain.
The complicated grew to become a museum in 1975, was nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Web site in 1998, and in the present day welcomes round 15,000 guests a yr.
