This is a famous old building here. This is beautiful during the night when lit.Gen.Charles de Gaulle had stayed here.This was a house of a yesteryear rich man.

You can find this grand edifice in front of the Maiden's Tower. It was the palatial home of the 17th century oil baron and philanthropist Issa-bey Hajinski . Built in 3 years the palace was completed in 1912. Like many other Baku buildings this one was also inspired by European architecture and was built on German Gothic lines. It is a five stories high building which used to stand out against the backdrop of flat of traditional houses of Baku. The building has two facades which are so different that you cannot believe that they belong to the same building. You can see unusual limestone carvings like gargoyles and comic faces. It is said that the architect siphoned off so much construction material and money from here that he built his own luxurious residence, which is now the American Embassy, from it. This very architect is also famous for another thing, his mistake. He got so involved in designing a grand palace that he forgot to build a sewer. So even after he admitted his mistake and added a sewer the building was called, "the house without a sewer.” The building has had some famous guests and residents like Charles de Gaulle, who stayed in it's best apartment for one night on November 26, 1944 while he was going from Tehran to Moscow to meet Stalin; and Yusif Mammad-aliyev, the famous Azerbaijani chemist and Founders of the Academy of Sciences who lived here for several years. This was one of the most interesting buildings of Baku and we all loved it.