No other place in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku reflects the post-soviet transformation with its pain, change and continuity more than the Martyrs Alley Baku / Alley of Martyrs (az. “Şəhidlər Xiyabani“).
Located on the top of a hill overlooking the Baku Bay and most of the city, Martyrs Alley Bakuhad, in the twentieth century, undergone several transformations that followed and accompanied the political history of the city and the region as a whole.
In a few months after “Black January,” as the intervention came to be known, with the escalation of violence in and around Karabakh, those killed in the fighting also began to be buried in Martyrs Alley Baku / Şəhidlər Xiyabani, in a lane below the Black January victims’ alley.
The Martyrs Alley Baku is heterogeneous not only in terms of architecture, but also in terms of the use of space. The memorial parts of the Alley naturally are the ones that are used for commemoration, both formal and informal.
Relatives and friends come here to visit the graves of their loved ones as they would in any other cemetery. But the Martyrs Alley Baku is also the site of official commemoration ceremonies on all the major tragic days of Azerbaijan’s recent history, such as January 20th, February 26 (the massacre in the Karabakh town of Hocali), and March 31st, commemorating the massacre of 1918.
In addition, foreign delegations are brought here to honor the victims and the children come on school visits.
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