The Molokan Garden in Baku: a pocket park with the Three Graces in the pond
Between the shops of Nizami Street and Fountains Square there is a garden so small you cross it in two minutes: a curved pond with three bronze women in it, flowerbeds, benches and old plane trees. Officially it is the Khagani Garden, after the poet Khagani Shirvani, but in Baku everyone calls it the Molokan Garden, and that name is the one that explains its history.
The Molokans
The Molokans were a Russian Christian sect, peasants who rejected the Orthodox Church and whom the tsar deported to the Caucasus in the 19th century. In Baku they settled on this plot, just outside the old city, and lived by selling milk, kvass and vegetables. When oil made Baku a rich city, in the 1870s, the municipality bought the land and turned it into one of the first public gardens of the new town. The Molokans left; the name stayed. In Soviet times it had other names and, after independence, it was given the poet's.
The pond and the Three Graces
The centre of the garden is a long, curved pond with a bridge, and in the water a sculptural group of three female figures, the Three Graces, which is the photo everyone takes. The paths run diagonally from the pond to the four corners, and between them there is shade, benches and the odd café. At 0.8 hectares, it is a park for sitting, not for strolling.
Who Khagani was
Khagani Shirvani was a 12th-century poet at the court of the Shirvanshahs, born near Shamakhi, who wrote odes, elegies and a travel poem to Mecca in Persian that is still read. Together with Nizami he is one of the two names Azerbaijan claims from classical Persian poetry, and that is why he got the garden.
Where it is
In the Sabail district, between Khagani and Rasul Rza streets, three minutes on foot from Fountains Square. You pass through it on the way to anywhere in the centre; the best time is late afternoon, when the sun goes off it and the benches fill up.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called the Khagani Garden?
After the poet Khagani Shirvani, from the 12th century, one of the classics of Persian poetry, born in Shirvan. The popular name, Molokan Garden, comes from the Russian peasants who lived here before it was a park.
When was it made?
In the 1870s, with the first oil money, when Baku began to build the new town outside the wall.
Where exactly is it?
In central Baku, in the Sabail district, a few minutes from Fountains Square and Nizami Street.
