Love stories and legacies of Baku’s oil barons: Murtuza Mukhtarov
The Story of Baku’s Wedding Palace

By Fuad Akhundov
Murtuza Mukhtarov (1855-1920) was a vivid personality among the prominent businessmen in old Baku. Despite being born into poverty and lacking education, he became an engineer through self-education. Later he became an oil well drilling specialist.

He started his own business, and in 1890 had established a huge company. His company included two well-equipped enterprises employing 2,500 workers manufacturing machinery for derricks and oil well drilling.

As a prosperous businessman, he became known as a builder of stately mosques. He built two, one in Amirajan, a suburb of Baku, where he was born and raised.

He built a second mosque in Vladikavkaz, a town in southern Russia. There, he fell in love with an Osetian noble lady, Liza-Khanum Tuganova. When Mukhtarov offered marriage, her parents refused him. Though very rich, he was not, from their point of view, high born of noble origin. So, in order to prove his sincerity and the seriousness of his intentions, Mukhtarov built a splendid mosque on the bank of the Terek River. Of course, no one could refuse him after that.

When she moved to Baku, Liza-Khanum Tuganova easily conquered the city with her aristocratic manners. Thanks to her, her husband was soon able to speak English and French.

Impassioned travelers, the Mukhtarovs traveled all over Europe. In her travels to Italy and France, Liza-Khanum was deeply impressed by a certain palace. She shared her impressions with her husband, not suspecting what might be the result. Deeply in love with his wife, Murtuza Mukhtarov purchased the palace plans. He had the famous architect I.K. Plosko modify the plans a bit, then had the French Gothic-style palace built in Baku in 1911-12.

For Liza-Khanum, that was a dream come true. But a great tragedy occurred while the palace was being constructed. One of the contractors, Imran Kasumov, was a good builder, an amateur actor, and an aristocratic person. Installing the graceful statue of a medieval chevalier that crowns the top of the palace even now, he fell to his death.

The city was shocked, but a week later, another tragedy occurred. Kasumov’s wife, Rubaba-Khanum Kasumova, committed suicide. Upon her husband’s death, she recognized that she would either have to leave Baku or wear the chador, as did most of the Muslim women except the nobility or the very rich.

But she was unable to do either, and so chose to end her own life.

The Mukhtarovs didn’t have children, so Liza-Khanum, famous in Baku for her kindness and generosity, arranged a kind of boarding school for poor and orphan girls in her wonderful gothic palace. She and her husband assisted many of them financially to continue their education in the institutions of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In 1914, the Mukhtarov’s palace became the residence of the first female Muslim philanthropic society, founded, of course, by Liza-Khanum. She was also a member of the society combating child mortality.

Murtuza Mukhtarov had no tolerance for revolutionaries. As the story goes, when Joseph Stalin was beginning his revolutionary activities in Baku at the beginning of the 20th Century, he hid and escaped from Mukhtarov. How right our subsequent history proved Mukhtarov!

His dislike of revolutionaries made Mukhtarov’s tragic end inevitable after the Red Army marched into Baku in April 1920. Shortly before the Army entered the city, Mukhtarov refused to leave, saying, “As long as I’m alive, not one boor will walk into my house in soldier’s boots.” But Red Army soldiers entered his house on horseback, breaking the marble stairs with their hooves, and yelling to the Mukhtarovs to get out. Mukhtarov shot both soldiers, and then turned the gun on himself.

Now alone, her palace divided and shared among the proletariat, Liza-Khanum was obliged to live in the basement of the palace that had been built for her. Deprived of almost everything she possessed, she escaped with a diplomat to Istanbul, but there he robbed her of everything remaining. She died in the mid-1950’s.

So two very beautiful but tragic love stories are connected with the magnificent Gothic palace of the Mukhtarovs. Today, this palace is Baku’s Palace of Weddings, where every Saturday young couples in love are united in matrimony. This may be the best function that could be situated in this gracious monument of fidelity and dedication.

Each architectural monument in Baku has a unique history. In fact, it could be said that:
That’s the place where every stone
Has a story of its own.
And the stories could be magic,
Should they not end up so tragic.