19223_ATB_EA Season Guides_22_V_PREVIEW

1. The Carpet Museum
3. The National Art Museum
Carpet
Museum
Housed in a striking building designed in
the shape of a rolled-up rug, this unique
museum has three exhibition halls unravelling
the beauty of Azerbaijan’s ancient
carpet-weaving heritage. There are seven
collections to explore covering pile carpets;
flat-woven carpets; carpet products; artistic
metalwork; pottery, glass, wood and
paper; textiles, clothing and embroidery;
and jewellery. In 2010 Azerbaijan’s carpet
art was recognised as an intangible cultural
heritage of humanity by UNESCO.
Opera and
Ballet Theatre
The fabulous Opera and Ballet Theatre building,
performed mainly in the Gothic style with
hints of Modern, dates to 1910 and is famous
for being constructed in just 10 months. It is
closely connected with the development of
opera in Azerbaijan, which began with Uzeyir
Hajibeyli’s Leyli and Majnun (1908), the first
opera in the Muslim East. Today you can
watch a range of performances, from local
ballets like 1001 Nights (Fikret Amirov) and 7
Beauties (Gara Garayev) to Guiseppe Verdi’s
opera La traviata.
National
Art
Museum
The National Art Museum is housed in two
stunning mansions built during Baku’s Oil
Boom period and contains a collection of
over 19,000 exhibits, including paintings,
handicrafts, antiques and other rare items of
national and global culture. There are about
3,400 paintings to admire by Azerbaijani,
Russian and Western European artists, as
well as beautiful examples of Azerbaijani
miniatures, na-tional clothes and carpets.
YARAT
Contemporary Art
Centre
The not-for-profit contemporary art organisation
YARAT is an epicentre of emerging Azerbaijani
artistic talent. Named after the Azerbaijani word for
“create,” the organisation regularly hosts thoughtprovoking
exhibitions, together with educational
workshops, film screenings and talks featuring
top local and international artists and filmmakers.
YARAT has various venues around the city, but this
is the main one, housed in a former ship maintenance
warehouse on the Caspian waterfront.
22 | EXPERIENCE AZERBAIJAN
EXPERIENCE AZERBAIJAN | 23
2. The Opera and Ballet Theatre
4. Yarat Contemporary Art Centre