Old postcards Azerbaijan

The Azerbaijan SSR was proclaimed on 28 April 1920, and these Soviet postcards of Azerbaijan show the republic as it looked in the 1970s and 1980s. Most come from a 1970 set of Baku views; smaller groups cover the offshore settlement of Oil Rocks and the city of Kirovabad.

The 1970 Baku set pairs the medieval core with the oil capital. It includes the Maiden Tower (captioned as 12th century), the Palace of the Shirvanshahs and a square by the fortress wall — the Old City that in 2000 became Azerbaijan’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site — alongside Oilmen Avenue, the Seaside Park, the Government House of the Azerbaijan SSR, the Baku Soveti metro station, the airport and the Lenin oil refinery.

Oil Rocks is a settlement built on stilts in the open Caspian after oil was struck there on 7 November 1949. Its 1975 cards show oil workers’ housing on piles, the steel trestle, Ilyich Bay and helicopters. Kirovabad appears in a 1984 set: Lenin Avenue, the Kyapaz hotel and the Baku cinema.

The Baku, Oil Rocks and Kirovabad cards are scanned from Soviet-era originals, with nothing restyled to look old, and the Azerbaijan selection expands as further cards are digitised.