Azerbaijan State Museum of Art

This compact national museum lives in two neighboring 19th-century townhouses, a deliberate mashup of parquet floors, ornate cornices and gallery lighting that insists you slow down. Rooms are arranged by theme so you move through Azerbaijani canvases, European oil paintings, ceramics and odd Far Eastern pieces as if paged through a brisk, opinionated catalogue. Contemporary shows land here with surprising force; a recent installation by Yudel Pen and Jakub Kruger felt like a small, private revelation. Expect to spend an hour or two; ticket queues form at the box office and staff keep a close, sometimes officious, eye on the galleries. Locals treat it as a civic treasury — a place to check in with national identity — while visitors use it as a concentrated primer on the country’s art history. It’s the sort of museum that anchors Baku’s cultural map: modest, slightly stern, and quietly proud of what it preserves.