Shahdag Mountain Resort is Azerbaijan's premiere skiing destination. Visitors have 14 miles of pistes to choose from.
Azerbaijan Brand Center
Visitors to Shahdag's ski slopes should wrap up, as temperatures in winter can reach -4F (-20C). The resort's large fleet of snow canons means there's no shortage of snow.
Azerbaijan Brand Center
Azerbaijan is known as "The Land of Fire" and lives up to its billing thanks to natural phenomena like Yanar Dag ("burning mountainside"), where gas rises to the surface and is said to have stayed alight for 4,000 years.
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Ateshgah Fire Temple near Baku is an important site of fire rituals, and has historic associations with Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. The temple's altar had a fire that was fed by natural gas emerging from underground until 1969, but today the mains gas supply sustains the flames.
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The Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum was designed by Austrian architect Franz Janz and is shaped like a rolled carpet.
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A view inside the Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum. The country is famed for its rich textile culture and the museum contains a wealth of artifacts and guest exhibits from all over the world.
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Azerbaijan is home to more than 400 mud volcanoes, including the world's largest. Head to Gobustan, south of Baku, to check out some of the most spectacular.
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You can get up close and personal with some of the mud volcanoes. In Gobustan, organized tours even give visitors an opportunity to take a mud bath.
