Nizami Street, known locally as Tarqovu, is Baku's main pedestrian shopping street, a long stretch of grey-stone Belle Époque facades running north from Fountain Square. The Russian oil-boom architects who built most of it were copying Paris and St Petersburg, and the result is one of the most coherent late nineteenth-century streetscapes in the Caucasus.
The shops at street level are mostly international brands, which is less interesting than the buildings above. Look up: caryatids, ornate window mouldings, decorative ironwork. The street is busy day and night and is a pleasant walk in any weather — it links most of central Baku's main sights and is a useful spine to navigate by.