Baku Museums: A Practical Guide to Hours, Tickets and Routes

Most of the museums worth your time in Baku sit within a short walk of the Old City walls, so two or three fit into one unhurried day. The one trap is Monday: the Carpet Museum and the National Art Museum are shut, while the museums inside Icherisheher open every day. Hours and foreign-visitor prices below are taken from each museum's official page (checked on 5 October 2026); they do change, so every figure comes with its source.

• Carpet Museum: Tuesday to Sunday, ₼10 for foreign adults.
• National Art Museum: Tuesday to Sunday, late on Wednesdays, ₼10.
• National Museum of History: in the Taghiyev mansion; check hours on its site.
• Old City museums: daily; Maiden Tower ₼19, Shirvanshahs Palace ₼24.
• Heydar Aliyev Center: a separate trip by taxi or metro.

Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum

If you visit one museum in Baku, make it this one. The building on the seafront boulevard is shaped like a rolled carpet, and inside are seven collections: knotted pile rugs, flat-woven kilims and sumakhs, carpet bags and saddle covers, metalwork, ceramics and glass, embroidered costume, and jewellery. A few pieces go back to the Bronze Age, but the core is 17th–20th-century weaving from Azerbaijan's carpet regions, so you can see how a Guba rug differs from a Karabakh one side by side. There are touchable replicas with Braille and audio captions in Azerbaijani, English and Russian.

• Where: 28 Mikayil Useynov Avenue, on the Seaside Boulevard opposite the Old City.
• Galleries: Tuesday–Friday 10:00–19:00, Saturday–Sunday 11:00–20:00; the ticket desk stops selling an hour before closing. Closed on Mondays.
• Tickets for foreign visitors: ₼10; pupils and students ₼3; a guided tour in English, Russian or Azerbaijani ₼12; the separate jewellery room ₼3 (open on fewer days).
• Allow: 1–1.5 hours.

Source: the museum's ticket page on iTicket.az, to which the museum's own website refers for hours and prices.

National Art Museum of Azerbaijan

The country's main art collection, more than 18,000 pieces, fills two 19th-century buildings that a glass-and-metal link joined in 2013. Azerbaijani painting, sculpture, embroidery and metalwork share the house with Western European and Russian canvases from the 16th to the 20th century — the Russian avant-garde room is a highlight — and with Islamic and Far Eastern art. The main building, the de Boer mansion with its Venetian mirrors, is half the pleasure. Wednesday is the useful day for travellers who spend daylight hours outside the city: the doors stay open until 21:00.

• Where: 11/9 Niyazi Street, a few minutes' walk from the Old City walls.
• Hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 10:00–18:00; Wednesday 12:00–21:00; Saturday and Sunday 11:00–19:00; closed on Mondays.
• Tickets for foreign visitors: ₼10; students ₼3; temporary exhibitions ₼3; audio guide ₼5; with a museum guide ₼12. Photos are allowed without flash.
• Allow: 1.5–2 hours.

Source: nationalartmuseum.az, prices and opening hours.

National Museum of History of Azerbaijan

Come for the history, stay for the house. The museum fills the mansion of the oil magnate Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, built at the turn of the 20th century, and nine rooms still hold the family's furniture and belongings — the ornate interiors are what most visitors photograph. The galleries walk you from Stone Age finds through the medieval states and the khanates to the 20th century, with a very large coin collection along the way.

• Where: 4 Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev Street, between Fountain Square and the Old City.
• Hours and tickets: the museum's own site could not be reached when we checked, and other sources disagree on the day it closes, so we do not print them here. Check azhistorymuseum.gov.az or ask at the door.
• Allow: 1.5–2 hours, more if you read every caption.

Museums inside the Old City (Icherisheher)

The walled city is run by the Icherisheher reserve administration, which publishes one price list for all its ticketed museums. They open every day, which makes the Old City the answer for a Monday. The two big ones have their own guides on this site — read the Shirvanshahs Palace guide and the Maiden Tower guide before you go. The smaller ones are quick, cheap and usually quiet:

• Museum of Azerbaijani Miniature Art — painted miniatures inside the 14th-century Molla Ahmad mosque, 9 Sabir Street.
• Numismatics Museum — coins and money history in the 12th-century Ashur mosque, 16A Asaf Zeynally Street.
• Underground Hammam — a 17th-century bathhouse below street level, 50 Boyuk Gala Street.
• Tahir Salahov House-Museum — the painter's portraits of composers and musicians, more than 700 works on show.
• Free entry: the Museum of Holy Relics (Quran manuscripts) in the Beyler mosque, and the archaeology museum of the Academy of Sciences (closed on Mondays).

Source: Icherisheher administration, museums and price list (checked on 5 October 2026). Local residents pay a lower rate.

Museum of Miniature Books

Not to be confused with the Miniature Art museum above. This is a private collection started by Zarifa Salahova, listed by Guinness as the world's largest of its kind: thousands of tiny books from dozens of countries, the smallest readable only through a magnifier. It sits close to the Shirvanshahs Palace, so pair the two. It is not part of the official price list and keeps short hours on selected days only, so check before you build a plan around it.

Heydar Aliyev Center

Zaha Hadid's curving white landmark stands a few kilometres north of the Old City, so treat it as its own outing rather than part of a museum walk. Our Heydar Aliyev Center guide covers what is inside, how to get there and how long to stay.

How to plan a museum day in Baku

Combine by area

• Old City loop (2.5–3 hours): Maiden Tower (45 min) → Miniature Art or Numismatics (20–30 min) → Shirvanshahs Palace (1–1.5 h) → Miniature Books if it is open.
• Seafront and walls (half a day): Carpet Museum (1–1.5 h), then across the road into the Old City for the Maiden Tower.
• Mansions of the oil boom (half a day): National Art Museum (1.5–2 h) and the History Museum in the Taghiyev mansion (1.5–2 h), both a short walk from Fountain Square.

A rainy-day plan

Start at the Carpet Museum when it opens, walk ten minutes along the boulevard into the Old City for lunch, spend the afternoon under the vaults of the Shirvanshahs Palace and the Underground Hammam, and if it is a Wednesday finish at the National Art Museum, open until 21:00. On a Monday, swap the Carpet Museum for the Maiden Tower and keep the rest of the day inside the walls.

Museums also make a good backbone for a cold-weather visit; more winter ideas are in Baku in winter and at New Year.

For a fuller programme, see three days in Baku and things to do in Baku. If you would rather have someone explain the Old City as you walk it, look at our Baku Old City tour or the other Baku tours.

Frequently asked questions

Which museums in Baku are open on Mondays?

The Icherisheher museums — the Maiden Tower, the Shirvanshahs Palace, the Numismatics and Miniature Art museums and the Underground Hammam — open every day. The Carpet Museum and the National Art Museum are closed on Mondays.

How much are museum tickets in Baku for foreigners?

As of 5 October 2026: Carpet Museum ₼10, National Art Museum ₼10, Maiden Tower ₼19, Shirvanshahs Palace ₼24, smaller Old City museums ₼5–15. Children and students pay less.

Which Baku museum is best if I only have time for one?

The Carpet Museum: it is the one collection you cannot see anywhere else, it takes about an hour, and it stands right across the road from the Old City.

Can I see the main museums in one day?

Three is a comfortable maximum — for example the Carpet Museum, then the Maiden Tower, then the Shirvanshahs Palace, all within a ten-minute walk of each other. More than that and the last one blurs.