Orangeries of the Central Botanical Garden of Baku (Mərkəzi Nəbatat Bağı)

Baku's Central Botanical Garden, attached to the Institute of Botany, was founded in 1934 according to the presidential website, the iTicket booking page and Wikidata; the text of the Azerbaijani Wikipedia and a tourism portal point instead to 1936. According to the Azerbaijani Wikipedia, orangeries and greenhouses began to be built there between 1935 and 1938, together with the institute and staff housing. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to the same page, a summer water shortage, the lack of winter heating in the orangeries and a shortage of labour caused part of the collections, including orangery plants, to be lost.

The garden became a public-law legal entity in 2022, placed under the Baku city executive authority. Works began in 2023: in July the presidency reported that the site had grown from 39 to 44.8 hectares; in June 2024 President Ilham Aliyev and the first lady toured a modern orangery still under construction; on 28 November 2024 the presidency announced the opening of the renovated 45-hectare garden, with new orangeries, a heavy overhaul of the existing orangeries, a three-block cultivation greenhouse, a lake and a viewing platform.

In September 2025 an AZERTAC report said the new orangery was still closed to visitors while its plants adapted, with an opening to visitors hoped for in about a year. A ticketing page read in October 2026 mentions access to the "new flower orangery" with a ticket in the "Orangery" category.

According to AZERTAC's September 2025 report, the orangeries are closed glass pavilions standing on either side of the fountains in the middle of the garden; through the panes one can see staff tending the plants. The new orangery, shown under construction in June 2024, measures 47 m long, 19 m wide and 15 m high. A bridge 3 m high and a walkway link its two entrances, so that visitors walk through it from end to end. According to the information given during construction, it was to be fitted with modern heating, cooling and humidifying equipment, and 40 of the glass panels covering it were to open automatically to ventilate according to the season.

The presidency speaks of "new orangeries", in the plural, built to current standards, without giving any other dimension: the figures above therefore apply only to the building inspected during construction. The restored orangery faces the new one. The pines and cypresses around this part of the garden shelter plants being acclimatised from the wind, at 135 m above sea level. On an aerial view of November 2024 released by the presidency (Wikimedia Commons), a long glazed volume with a roof of triangular facets can be seen among the trees; it matches the size of the new orangery, without the caption naming it.

According to the head of the woody plants laboratory quoted by AZERTAC in September 2025, the new orangery holds 108 species from several regions of Asia and Africa, going through a period of adaptation to local soil and climate. Together the two orangeries hold about 200 species, including desert and subtropical plants, trees, shrubs, and ornamental and medicinal plants. Through the glass, the journalist mentions water lilies, climbers, ficus, "ironwood" trees, palms and other exotic species brought from South Africa, Jamaica and China. Medicinal and endemic species that complete their adaptation are later planted outdoors.

Before the works, a 2021 article described a main orangery of tropical and subtropical plants, a small orangery for aquatic plants whose central part was covered in dwarf fig, and a house of agaves, aloes and other succulents closed to the public. Figures for the whole garden diverge within the 2025 report: about 2,500 species according to the researcher, more than 1,600 according to the author, including 125 rare or threatened ones.

Past the avenue of pines and cypresses just inside the entrance, a path leads to the centre of the garden and the fountains, with an orangery on either side. A ticket in the "Orangery" category opens access to the new flower orangery, during the hours shown by the ticketing page; in September 2025 a sign still forbade entry to the pavilion on the right to protect plants being acclimatised, so the current status is worth checking before a visit.

The garden also has a viewing platform over Baku, an amphitheatre that hosts festivals and exhibitions, ponds, a green maze, a playground and a restaurant. The presidency mentions a 650 m pedestrian bridge fitted with a lift. Since the orangeries are enclosed spaces, a visit does not depend on the season.