Tour Packages in Azerbaijan

• Arrival + meet & greet service at airport
• Transfer to your hotel in Naftalan
• Free time
• Dinner time
• Overnight

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Therapy procedures
• Lunch time
• Naftalan city tour
• Free time
• Dinner time
• Overnight

Sightseeing:

Naftalan - The Miracle Oil/Azerbaijan's Therapeutic Oil

Naftalan is a rare type of oil from Azerbaijan that is used only for medicinal purposes. Azerbaijani doctors have prescribed it for years to successfully treat various skin, joint and bone diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and rheumatism. The town of Naftalan, where the oil originates, has a special treatment center that was well known throughout the entire Soviet Union.

Naftalan is extracted from only one place in Azerbaijan - in the north - central part of the country, not far from Ganja. The town in question takes its name from the oil, "Naftalan", which comes from the Azeri for "neft alan" (oil buyer).

In its raw form, Naftalan oil is used for therapeutic baths, known as balneotreatment.

For burn patients, Naftalan is not used in the initial, acute period, but it is used later on to help speed up the regeneration process and prevent the formation of scars.

In modern times, Naftalan has been exploited since the 1870s. The first person to carry out research about the medical properties of Naftalan was a German chemist and engineer named Yeguer. With permission of the Russian czarist government, he developed an ointment from Naftalan in 1892 and sold it in markets as an effective medicine. In 1912, Kuel from Germany founded a joint-stock company called, "Naftalan" and set up companies in Magdeburg and Dresden which prepared ointments, pastes, liniments and creams from Naftalan and exported them to various countries including Russia.

During the Russo-Japanese war (1904 -05), Japanese and German soldiers carried jars with Naftalan ointment to heal their wounds. During World War II, Naftalan preparations were sent to numerous hospitals.

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Therapy procedures
• Lunch time
• Mingachevir tour
• Back to Naftalan
• Free time
• Dinner time
• Overnight

Sightseeing:

-  Mingachevir museum

-  Kur rowing center

-  Friendship park

Mingachevir (Azerbaijani: Mingəçevir, Мингечаур), is the fourth-largest city in Azerbaijan with a population of about 110,000. It is known as city of lights because of its hydroelectric power station on the Kur River, which splits the city in half.

The area has been settled for thousands of years, but the current city was founded in 1948, partly by German soldiers who were taken prisoner during World War II.

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Therapy procedures
• Lunch time
• Ganja tour
• Back to Naftalan
• Free time
• Dinner time
• Overnight

Sightseeing:

-    Tour of the city of Ganja   

-    Sightseeing tour in Ganja: visit the mausoleum medieval Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi 

-   A walking tour of Shah Abbas mosque, mausoleum of Khan Gandja- Jawad Khan

-   "Chokek hamam" (Accumulated bath)

-    Caravanserai

-    Park "Khan Bagi"

-    House made of bottles

-    Imamzadeh complex (mosque)

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Therapy procedures
• Lunch time
• Visit to Goygol National Park
• Back to Naftalan
• Free time
• Dinner time
• Overnight

Sightseeing:

Goygol and surrounding forests are famous for their abundance and charm in the world. Goygol always attracted attention for its fascinating nature and beauty, so in 1910-1912 the idea of the establishment of a reserve in the area was put on a point. As the first reserve in Azerbaijan - Goygol State Nature Reserve was established in 1925.

National Park is called by the name of Goygol Lake. And the reason for that is its transparent water which reflects surrounding green forests and blue sky as a mirror.

The principal aim of the establishment of Goygol National Park is protection endemic and endangered flora and fauna species, regulation of the stability of natural complexes, creation of more favourable condition in order to carry out scientific-research works, environmental monitoring, ecological awareness of population and development of ecotourism in the tourist potentially areas.

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Therapy procedures
• Lunch time
• Dashkesen tour
• Back to Naftalan
• Free time
• Dinner time
• Overnight

Sightseeing:

Few tourists are likely to hear of Dashkesan (lit. “Stone Cutter”) but it wasn’t so long ago that this was the largest mining region in the Caucasus, rich in mineral resources such as iron ore, cobalt, white marble, limestone, quartz, bentonite clay and alunites, which led to the region’s nickname as “the Urals of Azerbaijan.” The region’s iron ore deposit was used for centuries, while cobalt attracted the attention of prospectors in the 19th century (who included the Siemens brothers) and iron was smelted to produce weapons and farming tools up until the Russian Revolution in 1917.

In the early 20th century the area was heavily prospected, but the two world wars prevented any production on an industrial scale. This finally began in 1954, when the Azerbaijan Mining and Refining Facility was built, and went on to serve the aluminium factories in Ganja and Sumgayit and the Rustavi metal works in Georgia. A 1991 booklet stated that the region extracted 2,150,000 tonnes of iron ore each year.

During those years a railway was used to transport the ore from the mines and then on to the metal works in nearby Rustavi, until this was closed after the fall of the USSR. Small quantities were then sent to Turkey and other countries but it seems that this was the point when Dashkesan went into decline.

A railway bridge built by German POWs near the town of Bayan

The infrastructure to support this - the railway, factories and the town of Dashkesan sitting atop a mountain peak - were built by German POWs in the immediate post-war years. When the Germans began to leave in the late 1940s, Soviet prisoners were drafted in. Many of them mastered specific labour skills and decided to stay having later been granted amnesty. According to one former resident, the town began to grow in the 1960s as young people migrated from surrounding villages as well as graduate specialists, mainly from the Azerbaijan Oil and Chemistry Institute, Azerbaijan State University and Moscow State Mining University. In such a way Dashkesan acquired a uniquely mixed population geared towards exploiting the region’s rich geology.

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Free time
• Overnight

• Breakfast at the hotel
• Check-out from the hotel
• Transfer to the airport from Naftalan to Baku