The bronze shoeshiner of Baku: a small sculpture in a city of towers

Baku is photographed from afar for the Flame Towers, but at street level it has another, less known collection: life-size bronze sculptures, scattered along the pedestrian streets of the centre, portraying ordinary people. A girl sitting on a bench, a man with an umbrella, a photographer. And a shoeshiner, bent over his box, brush in hand, eyes on the shoe of a customer who is not there.

A trade once found on every corner

Until a few decades ago the shoeshiner was part of the scenery in any city of the Caucasus and the Near East. In Baku, a city of oil, trade and civil servants, they worked in doorways, in the markets and outside the railway station. The bronze figure takes that memory and fixes it on a pavement now walked by tourists and office workers.

What it looks like and where it is

It is cast in bronze, with enough detail to make out the clothes, the box and the tins of polish. It stands in the pedestrian area of the centre, near Fountains Square, and the usual thing is to sit on the empty stool opposite and have your photo taken as the customer. There are no opening hours and no ticket: it is street art.

What it says without saying it

In a city that changes its skin every ten years, these pieces speak of trades that are disappearing and of the people who did them. The contrast with the towers behind is what makes them work.

If you are interested, the girl on the bench and the Vahid monument are a few minutes' walk away, and the three together make an hour's stroll through bronze Baku.

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