Diri Baba, the mausoleum in the rock at Maraza: two storeys of stone set into a cliff, the legend of the living grandfather and how to see it on the way to Shamakhi

The road from Baku to Shamakhi leaves the Gobustan desert behind, climbs onto a dry plateau and, at the village of Maraza, some 80 km from the capital, a short turn-off leads to the foot of a limestone cliff into which a white domed building has been fitted, as if pressed into the rock: this is the mausoleum of Diri Baba, of 1402, the tomb of a Sufi saint to which pilgrims have been coming for six hundred years, and one of the strangest and most beautiful buildings in the country. There is no entry fee, no tourist coaches, and it takes half an hour, with the climb up the staircase cut into the rock and the view from the top. This guide tells whose tomb it is, what the building is like and how to make the stop on the way to Shamakhi and Sheki.

The legend of the living grandfather

Diri Baba means the living grandfather, and the name comes from the story told in the village: a Sufi sheikh, one of the holy men who wandered Shirvan in the 14th century, withdrew to the cave in this cliff, died there and, when the tomb was opened years later, the body was whole and undecayed, a sign of sainthood throughout popular Islamic tradition; since then people have come to ask for his help, tie ribbons on the trees below, leave coins and climb up to pray in the domed hall. The Shirvanshah Ibrahim I, the same man who began the palace in Baku, had the mausoleum built over the cave in 1402, and the inscription on the façade gives the date and the name of the architect, master Haji, son of Ustad, a rare thing for a medieval building here. Around it grew a cemetery still in use, with old and new gravestones along the slope.

The building

It is two storeys of pale limestone leaning on the rock, which serves as back wall and partly as roof, with a dome on a drum projecting from the cliff. Below, the entrance hall, with an eight-sided pointed vault, where pilgrims take off their shoes and perform the ablution; from it a narrow staircase cut into the rock, on the outside, climbs to the upper floor, the main hall, square, with the dome above, niches in the walls and the remains of Arabic inscriptions with verses of the Koran on the cornices, and beside it, through a low opening, the natural cave where tradition says the sheikh lies, with light entering through a gap. At the very top, over the rock, you reach the terrace above the dome, with the view of the plateau, the village and, on clear days, the mountains of Shamakhi. It has been restored since the 2000s and is well kept, with the stone clean and the joints redone, and there is no decoration beyond the architecture itself, which is part of its charm.

What is around

Maraza, officially called Qobustan since 2008 and nothing to do with the Gobustan petroglyphs on the coast, is a roadside village with tiled houses, a market and kebab restaurants along the highway; there is nothing else to see, but 30 km on is Shamakhi, with the Juma mosque and the Seven Domes cemetery of the khans, and the wineries of Shirvan, and the road carries on to Ismayilli, Lahij and Sheki. The route from Baku to Sheki, with Diri Baba, Shamakhi and Lahij, is the fullest day on the road in Azerbaijan, and the Albanian church of Kish waits at the end, next to Sheki, for the following day.

How to visit

From Baku the comfortable way is a car or a taxi for the day, an hour to Maraza on the Shamakhi motorway, with the turn-off signposted from the road; the Baku to Shamakhi buses stop at Maraza and from the village you reach it on foot in twenty minutes or by local taxi. There is no entry fee or fixed hours, the site is open in daylight and there is usually an attendant or a local who shows the cave; it is a place of worship, so you enter the halls barefoot, with shoulders and legs covered, and do not photograph people praying. In half an hour or three quarters you see it, climb up and down, and carry on to Shamakhi.

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