Baku Khanate


Baku Khanate

 

a feudal state in Azerbaijan whose center was the city of Baku. It arose in the middle of the 18th century on the Apsheron Peninsula. The basis of its economy was agriculture, the extraction of salt and oil, and the transit trade. Many Russian merchants lived in Baku, a situation that promoted the development of a Russian foreign policy orientation in the khanate. At the end of the 18th century, fearing a Persian invasion, the ruler of the Baku khanate, Husein Kuli-khan, requested admission into the Russian empire. In 1803 the request was granted, and the Baku khanate became a part of Russia in 1806.