Fire

The temple of Atesgah (fire temple) near Surxani was sacred to the Zoroastrians for 1500 years and remained a pilgrimage place for Parsees even after they were driven from Persia to India by the Arab invasions of the 8^th century. The inscriptions at the temple are in Sanskrit letters. The temple was built over a natural gas vent that had created an eternal flame. The temple builders diverted some of the gas through the pillars of the temple so that each of the four corners of the temple breathed fire. There is at least one other natural gas flare within the temple walls, which are made up of cells for the pilgrims to camp in. This area immediately around the temple was one of the first oil fields developed commercially. The commercial exploitation depleted the natural gas pressure so that the temple now had just has enough gas for the central flare and not enough to burn at the four corners. We had heard that even the central eternal flame now needs help from the Baku municipal gas works. When you climb the temple walls and look out you see a scene of utter devastation surrounding the temple, abandoned oilrigs, blackened soil and a crude stench. (You can click on "oil" below.)

Marco Polo wrote of the place and we visited Yanar Dag (above) literally “Fire Mountain” where natural gas vents from a seam a little over thirty feet long burn with flames up to nine feet high against a cared hillside. Someone has set some stones near the flares on which they set metal kettles and china teapots. You sip tea from water boiled by the Yanar Dag.