Foundations of the chapel named after the Holy Apostle Bartholomew

Next to the Maiden's Tower was the building of the former mosque, erected on the foundations of an ancient temple of fire worshipers. After the capture of the city of Baku and its annexation to the Russian Empire, the building of the old mosque was transferred to the Russian military department. They adapted the building for a prison cell - criminals exiled for serf work were kept there. The building then served as a military warehouse.

In 1818, the building was rebuilt into the first Orthodox church in Baku - St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

A few years later, after the construction of another new Orthodox church in the city, the question arose of turning the old church near the Maiden's Tower back into a mosque. In the 1870s, the building was in very poor physical condition and was self-destructing.

Therefore, in 1891, the German architect John Wilhelm Edel (1863 - 14.02.1932) was commissioned to design and build a stone chapel of the Holy Apostle Bartholomew near the Maiden Tower, at the place where the first Orthodox church in Baku was located, and before it was a mosque.

The chapel, built on private donations, was consecrated in 1892 and named after the Holy Apostle Bartholomew, one of the disciples of Jesus Christ.

The chapel was a small beautiful church in the Russian style, on the dome of which a mirrored cross was erected.

Unfortunately, after the overthrow of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1920 and the establishment of a communist dictatorship in the country, the chapel was closed in 1930. For many years it was empty, until in 1936 it finally collapsed and only the foundation remained of it.