Private jets have a new destination – Azerbaijan’s capital, where pioneering galleries and a handful of world-class luxury purveyors are changing the gritty post-Soviet landscape at exhilarating speed.
Azerbaijan was the first predominantly Muslim country to have a theatre, film studio and concert halls; in the 19th century Baku was dubbed the “Paris of the east” – visiting oil barons, the Rockefellers and Rothschilds, bequeathed the French villas that line the city’s esplanade. At night the buildings are lit as extravagantly as works in the Louvre; every pillar seems to have its own spotlight.
