Talk:Baku

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WikiProject Azerbaijan      (Rated B-Class)

Azerbaijan portal This article is part of WikiProject Azerbaijan, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Azerbaijan-related topics. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of objectives. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.

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Should this be at Baku or remain here at Baky (not to mention Baki)? Numerous sources seem to use Baku -- Docu

Why is this article called "Baky"? This is simply wrong. There is no such city. The officially and universally-accepted English spelling is "Baku." It is used everywhere, including Azerbaijani official sources. "Baky" is a mere speculation, based on Azeri pronunciation of the city's name. However, it is not correct. The article, therefore, should be titled "Baku." In any event, the correct spelling is used throughout the entire article, except its heading.

[edit] Copyright!

The history section is an exact copy of [1] even with same grammatical errors like ...an earthquake destroyed Shemakha and the of the 12th century and the Shirvanshah... Pouya 05:26, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Maiden's Tower

The link to Maiden's Tower is a badly placed one, because the Maiden's tower it links to is the one near Istanbul, not that in Baku. I removed the link (not knowing what better to do) --Jacobolus 09:58, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've now added a page Maiden Tower (Baku), and added some very minimal information to that page. Someone who knows more should fix it up and add explanation. --Jacobolus 22:34, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Metro

Hello everyone, I want to create a megaportal on the Metro systems of the FSU and some eastern European ones (with potentially expanding to cover other things like railroad city transportt etc), if you are interested in giving a helping hand have look at how we wrote the entries for Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Kiev. If anyone wants to start the Baku section please go ahead.Kuban kazak 23:46, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Please add [[it:Baku]]

You can also add [[sr:Баку]] --Dungo (talk) 18:26, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Clickable Jesus

Uh, why is Jesus even mentioned? Couldn't we state that this city was established several centuries before common era? and Why is it clickable? That's not very necessary.

[edit] Mount of God !!!!!!!!

I know farsi and I know that Bagh-Kuh doesn't mean "Mount of God". It means "Mountain Garden", Bagh is garden and kuh is mountain. But where is God here?

It is talking about ancient Persian word for god, baga (OP), later bagh. Same thing in Baghdad. The Behnam 04:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with modern Farsi, which has nearly 30% Arabic loan words in it. The word "Baga" means "God" in ancient Avestan (language of ancient Iranians and of the early Avesta of the Zoroastrians) and Sanskrit languages. The same root forms "Baga-dad" or "gift from God", which is now Baghdad

[edit] Needs info on Universities

If I had any idea, I would add info. Bobak 22:46, 14 April 2006 (UTC) Nevermind, worked it through myself. Bobak 23:47, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History needs expansion

Particularly the oil boom years around the turn of the 19th/20th century. So much interesting stuff that I wish I knew well enough to add. So many interesting names like Alfred Nobel as well as all the massive construction and development that gave Baku it's European character of today. --Bobak 23:41, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

See Azerbaijani Oil

[edit] Coat of arms

The current coat of arms is apparently obsolete, I'll try to fix it within several days. --Brand спойт 12:59, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure this is the new coat of arms, I havent seen it before though Baku87 11:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the one on the page now is the current coat of arms. Three flames on the black background was used at the times of tsarist Russia. Three flames and waves on the blue background is the modern CoA. Grandmaster 15:05, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

It's pretty. --Golbez 21:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fire temple at Surakhany

I've removed the line (under "Antiquity") that read: "The city was the location of an important fire temple of the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism ..."

If that was a reference to the temple at Surakhany, then its specious with respect to the religion and date ("antiquity"). There is no evidence that the Surakhany complex was ever used by Zoroastrians, and its missing all the hallmarks of a Zoroastrian fire temple (for instance, the central altar at Surakhany is open to all sides). All existing physical evidence (inscriptions et al, see Fire Temple of Baku) clearly indicates that it was a Hindu temple, an opinion that the museum's staff unequivocally express. That the Surakhany site may have once been the location of a Zoroastrian temple is possible, but (AFAIK) unprovable. If it was (in which case some proof would be nice, since it would be the only one of its kind to use naptha), it would have been some form other than the existing one. -- Fullstop 13:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] larger scale map

Could a larger scale map be added to show where this place is in the world? At the very least, the caption for the existing map (of Azerbaijan) should be relabeled something like "The Baku Region of Azerbaijan"

[edit] Information Transfer

Guys, I'm working on a project to increase the amount of tourism information on Azerbaijan, and I was wondering if you all could help start transferring some of Baku's information to the wikitravel site-http://wikitravel.org/en/Baku? I want to know how it works collaborating between the two web pages also. Thanks!! Jowa5813 08:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map

Where is the map? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.32.184.43 (talk) 00:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of prominent persons

Brandmeister, clening up is never means biased deletion of prominent peoples from Baku (those who have any Armenian roots)! Such a deletions must be explained and discussed here at first!Andranikpasha 12:29, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of prominent persons

Brandmeister, clening up is never means biased deletion of prominent peoples from Baku (those who have any Armenian and Jewish roots)! Such a deletion must be explained and discussed here at first!Andranikpasha 12:36, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to add Vagif Mustafazadeh to the list of prominent people from Baku, and saw what a mess it was! So I tried to organize them. I also eliminate a bunch of random references to ethnicities. I really do think that what made Baku special was that at certain times in history, most people didn't care about such things. Best, Eliezg (talk) 16:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Eliezg, pls stop to delete descriptions only for prominent Armenian persons. This is an encyclopedia and I dont know who cares and who do not cares its ethnicity (Armenian dont mean just of that ethnics, but thay was the representatives of that culture/tradicion and sometimes contributed to Armenian culture/science/sports etc.). Unfortunately Baku had not only that certain times but also the pogrom and discrimination times... Andranikpasha (talk) 15:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Andrakipasha, I was writing the following while you wrote your response. Perhaps yuo will consider it's arguments:

Why oh why oh why oh why oh why oh why oh why must every person in a list of people from BAKU - almost all born in cosmopoliton Soviet Baku, be ethnically identified? What possible benefit is there for readers to identify Yevgeny Petrosyan and Garry Kasparov, both of mixed heritage and self-identified Russians (российский the nationality rather than русский the ethnicity) as unambiguously "Armenian"? It might make SOME sense for those that became citizens of Armenia, for example, but then one should be consistent an identify those that became American or Israeli or Russian or whatever - and in a list even that seems like potentially too much information. I beg to differ from Andranikpasha's assertion that insertion of ethnicities is "according to the common practics." Says who, where, why? No list of notable people (say, to take a random example, from Providence, Rhode Island) needs to identify people as "German", "Anglo-Scotch", "Autro-Jewish", "Italian-Irish", "Afro-Czecho-Hungarian", or whatever ... not even those people for whom ethnicity could very well have played an important role (e.g. African Americans that faced institutional racism during their careers). I understand that there is national pride and high feelings related to some topics regarding Azerbaijan and Armenia, but why bring this to an innocuous list of people from Baku - a city which "belonged" for a long time to ALL of the Caucasus? For the time being I simply reverted all of these changes, but perhaps a compromise can be reached before these edits escalate? Welcoming feedback ..... Eliezg (talk) 15:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Just some points:

• "Yevgeny Petrosyan and Garry Kasparov, both of mixed heritage and self-identified Russians(any source?)". I never write they are Armenians! its a discussion with another user. By the way Kasparov and his family were emigrated from this internationalist city during the anti-Armenian pogroms.
• "No list of notable people needs to identify people as "German", or whatever ..." Yes if no Armenian (German, etc.) pogroms happened in that city and the whole Armenian population fled it.
• I think what you're doing is biased editwarring but if you re of another opinion just try to start from the Azeri/Azerbaijani persons. Then we will discuss the Armenians who seems to be only "ethnic/tradition-less and internationalist" persons in this list... Andranikpasha (talk) 16:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Dear Andranikpasha, please believe me when I say I am not biased or motivated by bias - certainly not ethnic or in any way pro-Azeri nationalist bias. My feelings (subjective, non-expert, outsider opinion) is that the violence in Baku against ethnic Armenians was an incredible, unconditional tragedy, and that the subsequent exodus of diverse groups was an absolute, possibly irredeemable gutting of it's soul. Furthermore, more of that aspect of Baku's history could (probably should) be emphasized in the article - the violence which occurred there in the early 1990's is basically brushed over. In my humble, irrelevant opinion, modern-day Baku is politically/socially/culturally in relatively sad shape. However, there was something about that place that generated a lot of intellectual/cultural energy in Soviet times- and that something was a certain cosmopolitanism and an environment where the DEEP, RICH, cultural traditions of various peoples (azeri, armenian, georgian, jewish, russian, etc.) could interact in an environment which, though probably always somewhat charged, was at least officially anti-nationalistic (do you agree?). In that light, I thought underlining ethnicities were somewhat annoying and not particularly consistent with Wikipedia "standards" (do these really exist?). The silliness of the Petrosyan/Kasparov edits (which I fully realize were not yours - but nor was my response directed specifically at you) sort of pushed me over the edge and made me think that maybe it is best to eliminate all ethnic references. As the article stands now after your last massage, I think it is fine and definitely not worth warring over. A more constructive project with respect to the article would be addressing the violence which did occur there during the transition period. With respect, Eliezg (talk) 17:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] March days

Added some small details to the lines talking about the March Days per the header we settled for on the event's article. It's more accurate than the previous sentence which totally makes it look like a one-sided affair with only one perpetrator (ARF). - Fedayee (talk) 16:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History and Oil Boom Edits

I added some information and references in the oil boom section. As only one paragraph is pertinent to oil, it may be better to just merge two parts into History section. I will work on that. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 18:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I put all names in alphabetic order of last names, and removed classification by ethnicity, as all mentioned people originated from Baku regardless. Those interested in particulars of prominent individual can click on Wikilinked page to get further information. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 22:56, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Cant we get more pictures from Baku during night? Baku87 (talk) 13:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dubious

The link to IranChamber.com does not open, perhaps, someone can add a more legitimate and neutral reference to the analysis of Baku's name. Thanks. Atabek (talk) 17:46, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pollution?

Baku was recently rated [#1 most polluted city in the world] by Forbes. It says pollution from the oil industry has drastically affected the quality of life, but I know nothing about it. Maybe someone more informed can add a note about it. Citizen Premier (talk) 03:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there are plenty of oil polluted areas around the city of Baku, which is a result of Soviet economic policy, which drained the country's natural resources without any regard to the environmental protection. It is one of the problems that this new country has to deal with. Grandmaster (talk) 06:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Apparently continous constructions and the building dust also do their :) --Brand спойт 20:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)