Shahidlar Monument

On the night of January 19, 1990, 26,000 Soviet troops rolled into Baku, cutting communications and crushing barricades in what became known as Black January. Over 130 civilians died in the crackdown on Azerbaijan’s independence movement. The first tomb at Martyrs’ Lane belongs to Fariza and Ilham Allahverdiyev, he was shot by Soviet forces, and she took her own life upon hearing the news. Their grave has become a symbol of devotion. The massive eternal flame at the monument’s center burns so intensely you can feel its heat from several yards away.

Ilham was 27. Fariza was 19, newly married, and outlived him by less time than it took the news to reach her. Their tomb sits first in a line of more than 150 black marble headstones, each etched with a face, arranged so precisely by age that a fifteen-year-old and a seventy-six-year-old end up side by side, casualties of the same night with nothing else in common. Azerbaijan declared independence a year and a half later. The flame has been burning since, which is either a very long time or no time at all, depending on how you’re counting.