What is the common link between the building of the Central Bank of Armenia in Yerevan and the Opera House in Baku? Those familiar with the profound Armenian contribution to this Caspian city know the answer: both structures were designed by the same architect, Nikoghayos Bayev.
Born in 1875 in Astrakhan, southern Russia, Bayev graduated from the Civil Engineering Institute of St. Petersburg (then the capital of the Russian Empire) in 1901. Among his classmates was Vardan Sarkisov. Together with another Armenian alumnus of the institute, Gabriel Ter-Mikelov (class of 1899), they would, over the coming decades, make a significant contribution to shaping Baku’s urban landscape.
A Russian researcher, Tatyana Speranskaya, citing two Azerbaijani sources, provides an impressive list of buildings designed by these Armenian architects in Baku: the opera house, railway station, clubs, hospitals, financial and commercial buildings, and residential areas across Armenian, Muslim, and other quarters of the city.
In 1911, roughly a decade after settling in Baku, Nikoghayos Bayev was appointed chief architect of the city. At that time, Baku was not a predominantly Muslim-Turkic city as it is today, and the appointment of an ethnic Armenian to such a senior post was not unusual. Armenians played a prominent role in Baku’s administration, culture, business, and humanitarian institutions during that historic period.
In 1911, Bayev completed the construction of the city’s prominent opera and ballet theater. Financed by the Mailian (Mailov) brothers — Hovhannes, Yeghia, and Daniel, successful entrepreneurs in the black caviar and oil industries, the theater became known as the Mailov Theater. Sources suggest that even today, more than a century later, many Azerbaijanis continue to refer to it as the “Mailov Theater,” indirectly acknowledging the Armenian identity behind this architectural jewel of the capital.
Between 1914 and 1916, Bayev designed a hospital that continues to operate as one of Azerbaijan’s main — and arguably most prominent — medical institutions. After the Caucasus became part of the Soviet Union in 1922, Bayev remained in Baku for another five years, notably completing the railway station of the former Lenin district, now known as the Sabunchu railway station.
