The Baku 2015 Flame visited the Azerbaijani capital’s Old City today ©Baku 2015

The Baku 2015 Flame continued its tour around the European Games host city today, visiting the Azerbaijani capital’s Old City.

The UNESCO World Heritage site provided a stunning background to the Relay as 21 Torchbearers, including Baku 2015 Coordination Commission chairman Spyros Capralos, Athens 2004 wrestling champion Farid Mansurov and Beijing 2008 judo champion Elnur Mammadli, passed in front of the Maiden Tower and the 11th-century Muhammad Mosque. 

Tunzala Agayeva, a famous Azerbaijani singer and celebrity ambassador, also carried the Flame through the Old City’s picturesque streets, finishing at Shirvanshah's Palace, one of the pearls of Azerbaijani architecture.

Built on a site inhabited since the Palaeolithic period, the Old City provides evidence of Zoroastrian, Sasanian, Arabic, Persian, Shirvani, Ottoman, and Russian presence in cultural continuity.

The Inner City has preserved much of its 12th-century defensive walls, while the Maiden Tower is built over earlier structures dating from the seventh to sixth centuries BC.

The Old City was proclaimed as a historical-architectural preserve in 1977 and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site together with the Maiden Tower and Shirvanshah’s Palace.

Azerbaijani alpinist Rinat Ragimkhanov abseiled down the iconic Flame Towers with the Torch
Azerbaijani alpinist Rinat Ragimkhanov abseiled down the iconic Flame Towers with the Torch ©Baku 2015

Earlier in the day, Azerbaijani alpinist Rinat Ragimkhanov abseiled down the iconic Flame Towers with the Torch. 

Parks and cultural spaces is due to welcome the Flame tomorrow, as it travels four different routes from Nizami Street to Fountain Square, Winter Park to Heydar Aliyev Palace Park, Philharmonic Park to funicular railway, and also through City View Park.

It will be collected from Maiden Tower, where the Flame is being kept overnight until the morning of June 11, the day before the Baku 2015 Opening Ceremony. 


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