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Baku

Baku’s most exciting recurring live music venues/events


When darkness falls over sky, flickering lights from coffee shops, restaurants, pubs, bars and basements bring life to the streets of Baku. These places offer vibrant entertainment not just for local people and but also visitors of Baku. Whether you are into jazz, or rock or punk or pop, you can still find a place to socialize with local people under pulsating melodies of your favourite music. Here we list local places where Baku’smost exciting recurring live music events happen.


Coffee Moffie: Piano and Wine Nights

Photo: Coffee Moffie Facebook

Coffee Moffie is a movie themed local coffee shop in downtown Baku, across the Fountains Square. It is a cafe of little bits of everything: kind of common space where you can meet people with various social backgrounds (entrepreneurs) or simply sit over a cup of cappuccino. On Fridays, meet your friends over glass of wine listening to live piano covers of Azerbaijani music before heading out to main night-out places.

Drinks from 3 azn. Islam Safarli street 9. +994509641880. www.facebook.com/coffeemoffiebaku. Open Mon-Sun: 8:30am-12am. Live music on Fri.


Etud Cafe&bar: Jazz from Basement

Photo: Etud Cafe and Bar Facebook

Here you dive into Baku’s night life by socialising while tasting local beer or cocktails. Although it’s been gone for long, this underground place attempts to bring the nostalgia of Soviet Baku with live jazz jam sessions. It will give thrilling vibes to experience classic jazz, ethno jazz (remix of classic jazz with local folkloric music), soul jazz and funky parties on weekends.

Drinks from 3 azn. Islam Safarli street 23. +994507666690. https://www.facebook.com/etudbaku/. Open Mon-Sun: 4pm-2am. Live music on Tue&Wed.


The Pheonix Pub: Rock Ballads of 80s and 90s

Photo: Pheonix Pub Facebook

On a normal day, you go there to play pool with strangers. But on weekend, the pool table turns into a dance floor under the greatest guitar music of 80s and 90s. That would be your Rock n’ Roll Friday night out. Although a small place and packed on weekends, it has gotten vibes and people you might like on weekends.

Drinks from 3 azn. Yusif Məmmədəliyev street 10. +994507431751. www.facebook.com/thephoenixbaku/. Open Mon-Sun: 4pm-2am. Live music on Fri&Sat.


Moon Blue Jazz Club: Everyday is Jazz

Photo: Moon Blue Jazz Club Facebook

Located in heart of Baku, Icheri Sheher – Old Town, it is coined as a reminiscence of La La Land in Baku. It has nice ambience and presents classic, modern and ethno jazz music interpreted by contemporary local jazzmen. Although services are reported as laggish, the experience of live music and local wine blend very well overall.

Drinks from 7 azn. Icheri Sheher, Kichik Qala 26 +994504645113. http://www.facebook.com/moonbluejazzclub/. Open Mon-Sun: 1pm-10pm. Live music everyday.


Open Mic Baku

Photo: Open Mic Baku Facebook

Open Mic is not a place but an event. It uses various popular places to bring people together who can sing. The principle is as simple as if you have a guitar and can sing a song, then bring it on. You can join the community to celebrate music holiday for couple of hours. Follow their page on Facebook to find out venues it is happening every month.

https://www.facebook.com/OpenMicBaku/


Le Chateau Music Bar: Hipsters’ music

Photo: Le Chateau Music Bar Facebook

An alternative environment of people with black cloths, long beard and tatoos meanwhile listening to live music of rock, pop, hip-hop or punk in underground atmosphere. Those people are of different social strata in a positive sense. Still one gets chance to socialize with local people over one of the cheapest beers in the city.

Drinks from 2 azn. Islam Safarli steet 10. +994557243954. www.facebook.com/lechateaubaku. Open Mon-Sun: 4pm-10pm. For live music see the Facebook page.


In Club: Underground techno club

Photo: iN Club Facebook

Since its inception in 2015, iN sets the bar in bringing up Baku’s electronic club culture. This alternative recreation breaks stereotypes and changes night life. Now running the club from abandoned Soviet factory of Valuable Papers it gathers more 400 people attenting their events. Both international and local artists offer best of electronic techno music in the city. All has been said nicely, please follow their dress code rules to get iN Club.

Drinks from 5 azn. Jeyhun Salimov 18A. +994506880813. http://www.facebook.com/inclubbaku. www.inclubbaku.com.

updated: 11 March 2020

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About Baku

Once was a small town (as large as the Old City) on the shore of the Caspian Sea, Baku is now the capital of Azerbaijan and the largest city in South Caucasus. Sometimes it’s been labelled as “New Dubai” or “the City Built by Oil”. Baku offers beautifully contrasting, perhaps, contradicting experiences stemming from the background of Oriental Medieval, Tsarist Russian, Soviet and Modern Independent periods. It’s also a peaceful home for diverse ethnic and religious groups.

Check Baku’s official tourism portal: Baku Tourism Information Center

Where to Stay?

Baku has a lot of space for incoming tourists and traveller even during peak months. But the issue is that they are mostly 4 or 5 star hotels in Baku which is not the first preference of middle class or budget travellers. However, there is a recent trend of budget hotels and hostels emerging every day in city centre. This allows travellers to find a decent place to stay for moderate prices. This ongoing tendency establishes hosting culture and friendly environment for tourist gradually. Therefore you should keep your expectation low when staying at those mid-range hotels and hostels

For hotel&hostels, have look at booking.com or Lonely Planet’s selections.

Food

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Azerbaijani Cuisine: Shah pilov, uch-baji dolma, lavangi. Photo credit: http://www.trend.az

Azerbaijani cuisine is heavily typified by the ingredients of beef, lamb and pastry. But you can still enjoy fresh and light food varieties, too. Azerbaijani cuisine is not based on quick cookery. Foods that are uniquely Azerbaijani may take an hour to prepare, which would require you ordering food you want to eat in advance at the same time reserving a seat. To name some of national food that you’d like are pilaf, dolma, lavangi and of course kebabs:

kabab
Kebab. Photo credit: http://www.sufrem.az/
dolma
Dolma. Photo credit: http://www.azernews.az

Baku is also a cosmopolitan city and most of the restaurants and cafes in Baku downtown offer European and Asian cuisines along with Azerbaijani. If you cannot make you mind, always remember that there is McDonald’s right in the city centre or you may like eating in the world’s biggest KFC nearby the Central Train Station.

Drinking

Despite the fact that Azerbaijan is Muslim majority country, alcohol consumption is allowed. And you can purchase any type of alcohol from markets. However Azerbaijan is one of the least alcohol consuming countries in Europe, it makes up to the-top-ten-list in Muslim World.
Devaluation of the local currency hit the prices to cause inflation. But still the nightlife is not that expensive in Baku. Local beer, Khirdalan, costs around 2-3 AZN pub to pub. However, the prices will be around 4-6 AZN in those luxury places.
You can find out pub and cafes with nice atmosphere and vibes in walking distance from city centre, Fountains Square. Əbdülkərim Əlizadə and Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev streets are famous for their English and Irish pubs. Islam Safarli street is becoming an alternative pub and cafe street recently. Those are not just new pub-and-cafe markets but also a new kind of culture emerging under roofs of those underground places.

Use following platforms to access information about cafes and restaurants:
http://www.citylife.az
http://www.azrestoran.az

Souvenir and Gifts: What to Buy?

No wonder like all tourists and traveller you also want to buy souvenir or gifts to take home for family and friends from Baku. But you might have difficulty to decide what to buy that reflects the best of local culture and tradition.

Also note that bargaining is an essential part of buying those souvenirs and gifts in shops of Baku. You should always remember that prices differ from shop to shop. Therefore you are better try couple of shops to get some sort of favourable deal if you are not good at bargaining.

Icherisheher (Old City) is full of those souvenir and gift shops and just wandering along the streets of the Old City will take you there randomly.
Just couple of ideas for gifts and souvenirs:

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Azerbaijani Kelaghayi (headscarf). Photo credit: http://www.trend.az
8895d4599b40ab8688786f0ddbc818289ad74023
Crude oil painting ‘neft painting’. Photo credit: http://www.regionplus.az
ceramics
Ceramics. Photo credit. http://www.craft.az

Events

It could be quite a struggle to involve in events taking place in Baku. The most important events that are observed with large masses and crowds are the New Year Eve and Novruz Holiday.
Novruz Holiday is the one you would definitely want to attend if you are interested in local traditions, cultures and food. People start festivities of Novruz a month prior to actual date which is March 21.
Besides, there are lot more parties, concerts and all other kind of events taking place throughout years
Aside from these traditional events, Tallinn’s always busy. Parties and concerts are aplenty and the city has plenty of funky venues catering to the more alternative crowd.

http://www.citylife.az – Events in Baku

Useful phone numbers:

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State Migration Service919
Long distance telephone communications107
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Emergencies Ministry112
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