Baku - Part One

In this programme art historian Janina Ramirez and art critic Alastair Sooke are in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan. A former Soviet state, bordering the Caspian Sea, Baku offers a tantalising mix of the ancient and modern - at the crossroads of east meets west, on the ancient silk trading route. It is a city looking westwards, eager to turn itself into a tourist destination.

Janina and Alastair discover a city for which oil has been both a blessing and a curse. The profits from oil transformed its architecture twice - first in the late nineteenth century, and again in the twentieth. As a result, Baku is full of buildings that feel like 19th-century Paris, but also gleaming new structures by architectural stars like Zaha Hadid. And all around, the traces of Soviet rule offer other surprising clashes of art and architecture. Janina and Alastair pick their way through this maze of influences and travel back in time, seeking the roots of Azerbaijani identity.