Nizami Mausoleum
Cylindrical red granite tomb of the poet Nizami Ganjavi, set in a sculpture park east of Ganja.
Nizami Ganjavi, the twelfth-century poet who wrote the five long narrative poems known as the Khamsa, was buried outside Ganja. An older tomb over the grave collapsed, and a replacement was raised in 1947. Fumes from a nearby aluminium plant damaged that structure badly, and it was rebuilt between 1990 and 1991 to designs by the architect Farman Imamguliyev. The present tower stands about twenty metres high, a plain cylinder faced in polished red granite brought from Ukraine and inscribed with lines from the poet's work.
The mausoleum stands on the main road between Ganja and Baku, about a half-hour drive from the city centre. Around it is a landscaped park laid out over some thirty-five hectares, with an artificial lake, fountains and buta-shaped features. A group of metal sculptures by Gorkhmaz Sujaddinov shows characters and episodes from the Khamsa, among them Leyli and Majnun and Khosrow and Shirin. A separate Nizami museum in the city shows manuscripts and miniatures lent or copied from libraries in Austria, Germany, Russia and Britain.
Highlights
- Twenty-metre cylinder of polished red granite rebuilt in 1991
- Metal sculpture group by Gorkhmaz Sujaddinov of scenes from the Khamsa
- Landscaped park of about thirty-five hectares with lake and fountains
- Verses from Nizami's poems carved into the granite facing
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