Baku / The 26 Commissars Square / P1040131bw

The centre of this large square is a dramatic monument with a man coming out of the ground with a large stone circle hovering above it.

The monument pays tribute to the 26 bolshevik commissars from the Baku commune defeated by the Turkish in 1918 and later slain in Krasnadovsk (now Turkmenbashi).

The Communists blamed the British for the killings and the unfortunate fighters became heroes in Soviet Azerbaijan. Today, the flame that burned in their monument is gone.