Bathtime in Baku
We visit Azerbaijan’s best hammans – old and new
WORDS | BRIGID KEENAN
STRING GLOVES & SHRIEKING
AGHA MIKAYIL HAMMAN
It’s Friday – which means it’s women’s day at Agha Mikayil Hamman. My fellow English expat friend, Nicole, and I are finally venturing to the 18th-century Baku bathhouse to try an oriental experience, arriving equipped with our own towels and plastic flip-flops.
The three stout ladies lolling around in the tiny entrance hall smoking fags leap to their feet and accompany us rather possessively into a domed and pillared hall. After booking in for a bath (3 manats/ £2.25), scrub (6 manats/£4.50) and massage (6 manats/£4.50) we’re led through to where there are a dozen or so half-clad ladies and a little boy, all sipping tea, chatting, laughing, smoking and brushing out wet hair. This sociable atmosphere puts Nicole and I at ease, even though we can’t communicate with anyone.
Two of the large ladies have nominated themselves as our masseuses, and once we have taken off our clothes and put them in a locker (we modestly keep on our swimsuit bottoms) we are ushered into a second domed hall where we are shocked to see, through the steam, about two dozen women, mostly on the very large side, stark naked, in various stages of bathing. It is a scene from an Orientalist painting: we are surrounded by vast amounts of flesh. Since I quit smoking, I weigh nearly 11 stone, yet I suddenly feel positively undernourished.
Next up, we’re taken to the sauna, where we sit, buttock to buttock, on the wooden benches with more friendly naked ladies for three minutes, before being sent into the plunge pool, which is half way up the wall accessed by a perilous metal ladder. It’s breathtakingly cold and you can’t get in slowly – you have to jump in from the ladder. Shriek!
Post-plunge, our masseuses are waiting for us – though we barely recognise them as they are now merely wearing skimpy pants. We are made to remove our bikini bottoms and lie face-down on plastic covered stone tables to be scrubbed down with a string glove. Just at the moment I thought my skin would be rubbed off altogether, Mila, my scrubber, moved on to the next area. You can actually see your old skin coming off in little rolls; I tried not to think of all the dead skin that must have been rubbed off here in the last 200-odd years.
The scrub is followed by an excellent massage – front and back – done with shampoo. Mila finishes this off by going over me with a rolling pin, as if I was a huge piece of pastry. I can hardly get up off the slab, but by the time I stagger back into the first room to get dressed I feel better. The other women in there welcome us back with lots of smiles. A pretty girl having a face massage inspires Nicole to have one too (3 manats/£2.25) while one of the women gives me a dollop of her homemade face mask.
All the ladies except us have brought sweets, food, drinks and oils to rub into their shiny bodies – which they now generously share with us. It looks like they are planning to be there for some time – in the old days they would have been arranging marriages between their children.
Women’s days are Monday and Fridays. All other days are for men. 16 Naklatya Krpostnaya, in the Old City, +994 (0)50 492 7421
PILLARS & IRISH PUB DÉCOR
TAZA BEY HAMMAM
In the meantime, not very far away in the main city, my friend Nicholas – a Greek Australian residing in Baku – is checking out the Taza Bey Hammam, currently the best-known and most popular in Baku.
Taza Bey means New Lord. It was built in traditional hammam style (domes, pillars, vaults) in 1886 and revamped in 2003.
I have gaped in wonder at the entrance, with its two huge gilt cherubs pouring water into bowls outside the front door, and two Roman centurions standing in the hall, along with a stuffed bear, some animal skins, two living hamsters, and various other extraordinary unrelated items. Nicholas says there is much more inside, including two Egyptian statues in the main bath area, and I have to take his word for it – I can’t visit myself as it’s men only.
“An Aladdin’s cave of kitsch,” he reports. “The first room, where you leave your clothes, and get issued with a pair of boxer shorts to wear during the bath and massage, is more like one of those Irish pubs full of memorabilia than a hammam.”
Once in his shorts Nicholas tries the dry sauna, and then immerses himself in the cold pool in the middle of the main vaulted hall. His half-hour massage (“bracing rather than sensual”) done by a woman in a toga, is followed by sessions in the wet sauna, the dry sauna again, and another dip in the pool. Interestingly, he said no men went nude; they all wore a towel or the shorts supplied. Are women less inhibited than men in Baku?
He says he would go again but next time with a friend to hang out afterwards in the restaurant and bar. Spending about an hour and a quarter in the hammam cost him 27 manats (£20.25): 7 manats for the entrance fee, saunas and pool and 20 manats for the massage.
Taza Bey Hammam, 94 Sheikh Shamil, +994 12 492 6440, www.tazabey.az
HERB SUPERB
GHASIMBEK HAMMAM
Back in the Old City, the Ghasimbek Hammam was discovered in the 1970s buried beneath some houses. It has been restored and is now a place where herbal medicine is practised in a rather lethargic way.
You can see a doctor (10am–6pm) and ask for a herbal tea as a remedy. Herbal teas cost between one and 12 manats (75p–£9). Go with a translator (in fact, try to take someone who speaks Azerbaijani to all these places).
4 Vali Mamedov Street, +994 12 492 2953
INFINITE BLISS:
LANDMARK HEALTH CLUB
You don’t have to go to an authentic centuries-old institution to get the luxurious Baku bathhouse experience. The infinity pool at the recently opened Landmark Health Club is on the ninth floor of the building. lt looks out over the city and commands an extraordinary view (pictured above). This may be a modern airy club with state-of-the-art exercise machines and so on, but I use it as a hammam.
I melt in the steam bath, bake in the sauna and finish with a shower and a swim in the loveliest pool in the city. Body massage is done by Emil or Elena and costs from 25 manats (£18.75) for 20 minutes to 45 manats (£33.75) for an hour.
The Landmark Health Club is at 96 Nizami Street. Membership costs upwards of 175 manats a month. +994 12 465 2000 ext 1021, www.thelandmarkhotel.az
FADED GLORY:
FANTAZIA
In 1896 the first oil boom was at its height, and Baku was awash with money. It was the era when the oil barons commissioned European architects to design their many palaces – and when the Fantazia opened the first Western-style hammam in the city. Instead of a public area for bathing, there were 23 private rooms, so men and women have always been able to go there at the same time.
You can imagine how glamorous it must once have been. There are mirrors, painted tiles (both dated 1896) and chandeliers everywhere. Private bathrooms are large with marble baths and tiles. Sadly, it’s all rather shabby now so I’ve not felt up to having a bath, sauna or massage there (sauna and massages: 5 manats [£3.75] each). Instead, it’s nicer just to drop by for a glass of tea and indulge in a little nostalgia for Baku’s past glory.
114 Dilara Aliyeva. Call +994 (0)50 330 8821 and speak to Suleiman if you want an appointment for massage. Otherwise just pop in between 7am and 10.30pm.
