Wikimedia CEE Hub/Microgrants/report/Photographing Silk Road monuments in In Azerbaijan

Status: Approved report

Photographing Silk Road monuments in In Azerbaijan

By: Xayala Mammadli, En Merker

The goal of the project was to immortalize the photos of historical monuments built on the part of the historical Great Silk Road that passed through Azerbaijan, upload them to Commons, and create articles about historical monuments that Wikipedia does not have any information about. Our team, which was created for this purpose, has achieved its goal. In total, more than 1,000 photos of more than 30 monuments were taken. The best 650 quality photos were selected and uploaded to Commons, creating new categories.

full report...

Grant report

The goal of the project was to immortalize the photos of historical monuments built on the part of the historical Great Silk Road that passed through Azerbaijan, upload them to Commons, and create articles about historical monuments that Wikipedia does not have any information about. Our team, which was created for this purpose, has achieved its goal. In total, more than 1,000 photos of more than 30 monuments were taken. The best quality photos were selected and uploaded to Commons, creating new categories.

Project planning

Before starting the project, we made a plan and determined the relevant tasks to be done. To achieve the main goal, a list of monuments and places to visit was compiled. The main goal was to take photos of monuments that were in danger of collapsing and falling down. For this, we also conducted appropriate scientific reconnaissance. Unfortunately, some of the monuments we planned to photograph were either destroyed or heavily fenced off for restoration. Some of them were artificially prevented from being photographed (in particular, for some reason, the local municipality and religious community did not allow us to photograph mosques and churches). For this reason, we were unable to photograph most of them.

Work process

In general, our project was realized within two months. Because, as planned in advance, the scope of the project covered a very wide area. Therefore, various places were visited. Also, for this reason, we visited the Gadabay region, which has never been photographed and is 550 km from Baku, and the city of Ganja, which is 350 km away. We even met local archaeologists during the trip, watched their work process, and filmed them. As part of the project, photographs were taken of existing historical monuments, neglected and crumbling monuments, and renovated monuments.

The result of our project

At the end of the project, we sorted through the photos we took. We discovered that we had taken a lot of photos of the monument. We took the photos with professional cameras, a drone, and a phone camera. Although we took over 1,000 photos, we selected the best ones and uploaded over 650 photos to Commons. We created categories on Commons for all the monuments we uploaded. We created 15 categories on Commons and enriched the old ones.

In addition to Commons, we also created articles for monuments that do not have articles on Wikipedia. The articles were linked to Wikidata.

Finally, it should be noted that the project contributed to the enrichment of Wikimedia projects within the framework of the literaryization of Azerbaijani culture and history and served to increase awareness about them on open knowledge platforms such as Commons and Wikipedia.

Additional part of the report (Lessons learned)

Lessons learned

Some of the monuments we planned to photograph were either destroyed or heavily fenced off for restoration. Some of them were artificially prevented from being photographed (in particular, for some reason, the local municipality and religious community did not allow us to photograph mosques and churches). For this reason, we were unable to photograph most of them.

Financial report

Financial report for your project
Type of expense	Description	Amount (EUR)
Transport	Rent car, train tickets, public transportation, and taxi expenses	240
Renting	Photo camera, drone camera, memory cards, etc.	220
Unexpected expenses	Museum tickets, Museum entry fees	30
Food and beverages	Food expenses (for 4 people)	210
Total		700

Achieved metrics

We managed to achieve all our target metrics. Main results in the following table:

Achieved Metrics
Metric	Target	Result
Number of participants	4	4
Number of photos taken	1008	650
Number of photos uploaded to Commons		650
Number of monuments to be photographed	22	30
Categories created on Commons		15
Elements created on Wikidata		8
Number of articles created and translated on Wikipedia		4