Mud spewing volcanoes, ancient rock art: Azerbaijan's most unique wonders

Baku, Dec 15 (IANS) Azerbaijan's biggest city as well as its capital Baku has many tourist attractions, including numerous historical-architectural monuments of the medieval period that ringed around with the Flame Towers, a trio of skyscrapers, picture-perfect beaches with lush greenery and offers a budget-tourist destination where ancient history meets modern architecture.

A short drive from the COP29 conference centre in the Walled City of Baku, with the inner city (Icherisheher) that has preserved much of its 12th-century defensive walls brimming with Oriental architecture and history with the narrow cobblestone streets, takes one closer to a very unique, unparalleled experience among beautiful desert-scape -- mud spewing out from the earth, believed to have medicinal properties.

They are mud volcanoes, one of the world's most unique natural phenomena in the Gobustan region that looks like a crater on the moon.

Nearly 400 of them have been recorded in Azerbaijan, tucked between Eastern Europe and West Asia, and several of them are located in Gobustan. Some of the gurgling volcanoes date back over 20 million years.

A mud volcano is a mixture of mud and subterranean gas instead of molten rock.

Unlike traditional volcanoes, they do not spew out molten lava but instead deliver a unique spectacle of thick, bubbling mud.

The mud is composed of clay, silt and other minerals which give the surface a unique experience and a rare chance for visitors to behold one of the planet's most outstanding displays and deepen their understanding of the geological marvels.

"Many consider the therapeutic properties of the mud volcano and many visit the area to experience mud baths. We don't advise using them without medical consultation," says a guide at the Mud Volcanoes Tourism Complex to the visiting media team.

Mud volcanoes are formed from tectonic movements that cause underground gases to reach the surface. During this process, some of the escaping gases ignite and burn perpetually.

Some believe that these eternal flames contributed to the rise of Zoroastrianism in Azerbaijan over 2,000 years ago. The Mud Volcanoes Tourist Complex showcases the Gilinj mud volcano.

Gilinj means sword in the local dialect.

As per the information centre, Gilinj comprises a row of eight cones arranged sequentially that extend towards a valley. The active cones of this mud volcano emit a significant amount of 'breccia' (a type of rock consisting of angular fragments). There is no information in scientific sources about the powerful eruptions of the Gilinj volcano. However, the discovery of geological layers belonging to the Middle Pleistocene and Upper Pleistocene eras in some excavations near the mud volcano indicates that it was active as far back as between 770,000 and 126,000 years ago.

Near Gilinj is Toraghay Mud Volcano which has made it into the Guinness World Records as the world's largest mud volcano.

The visit to Mud Volcanoes Tourist Complex comes with a ticket price of 15 manat for foreigners, which would be Rs 750. And for the kids, it is really cheap. It's 3 manat or Rs 150. However, the visitors refrained from approaching the volcanoes within a distance of more than five metres.

The tourist complex has a natural history exhibition that displays skeletons of giraffes, bears, tigers, lions, wolves, pumas, wild boars and numerous other animals.

Visitors can also marvel at rare precious stones, crystals and geological specimens in exhibits sourced from various regions of the country, spanning from Gobustan to Nakhchivan.

The mud volcanoes lie in the vicinity of the Unesco heritage site Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape. The landscape with its characteristic broken rocks and boulders was created as a result of earthquakes. The site also features the remains of inhabited caves, settlements and burials, all reflecting an intensive human use by the inhabitants of the area during the wet period that followed the last Ice Age, from the Upper Paleolithic to the Middle Ages.

The site, which covers 537 hectares, is part of the larger protected Gobustan reservation. Home to the world's first oil well dug in the mid-1800s with huge gas deposits with thriving wine traditions, Azerbaijan has earned the nickname "The Land of Fire" and has two sites inscribed on the World Heritage List: the Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower, and Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape.

According to Unesco, Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape was inscribed as an outstanding collection of some 6,000 rock engravings bearing testimony to 4,000 years of rock art.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)

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