Land of legends: Mountain villages of Northern Azerbaijan are on the cusp of change

It was early December, and there was no snow in Quba, however the city administrator nonetheless advised me I used to be too late. “You may’t go to Khinalig now,” he mentioned. “The highway is closed. The Khinaligi come down for the final time in September and purchase all the things they want for winter.” I used to be set on going, so I forged round for the sturdiest automobile on the taxi stand. I picked out a Russian-made Lada that regarded like a winner, that’s to say the one automobile with no rat’s nest of uncovered wiring spilling from the sprint.

Eldar, the motive force, didn’t seem fazed by my request, a minimum of a lot much less so than my bargaining him down from $40 to $30. He mentioned he had completed the hour’s drive to Khinalig many instances – he had even helped construct the college as a welder again in 1995. The highway was 25 years previous by then, unpaved and sometimes closed in winter. Solely large vehicles, such because the Soviet GAZ-66, may get via.

Northern Azerbaijan is part of the world outlined by isolation. The Caucasus Mountains are excessive and horrible, and they’re stuffed with caves for gnomic tribes and nomads to cover inside. It was an unconquerable land and stays divided into pockets of separate and singular cultures.

In an space roughly the dimensions of West Virginia, there are two dozen languages, most of them distinctive to villages that spent centuries remoted from the remainder of the nation and one another. Not solely Khinalig but in addition the settlements of Buduq, Qriz, Cek, Tsakhur and Nij, to call however just a few, communicate their very own language. The world, nevertheless, all the time finds a approach in.

An impending go to from Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in 2007 noticed the highway paved, and subsequent publicity has seen the city’s esteem develop. Close by Shahdag Mountain Resort brings in skiers from around the globe. Now UNESCO World Heritage standing looms for Khinalig, and the Azerbaijani tourism sector is quickly selling it as one of many nation’s many hidden gems. Some fear that the creeping modernism threatens the historic essence of those villages, that they had been higher off remoted on the finish of an impassable highway.

It was a fantastic, crisp day. Frost coated the bottom, however there was the promise of solar. To the west, snow-covered Mount Shahdag was so sharp towards the bluebird sky that it appeared drawn in needlepoint. It was nonetheless early, and roadside stalls had been lighting fires for chai and kebabs. It was a day of promise. However as soon as on the highway, Eldar misplaced his cool. He leaned ahead, squinting on the highway and holding his elbows excessive. Every time he noticed one thing of word (which was typically), he jabbed them into my ribs.

Quba sits at about 2,000 ft above sea degree, Khinalig at about 7,700. The ascent is lengthy and winding. The minute it started, the sickly odor of gasoline fumes stuffed the Lada. I attempted the electrical window. Nothing. It was chilly, round 32 levels. I slid the warmth on. Nothing. A lot for choosing a winner.

Snow started to pile on the highway, and Eldar started to point out indicators of psychological pressure. A number of instances, he stopped to question somebody on the roadside. “Will this automobile make it to Khinalig?” He sounded frantic, which wasn’t helped by receiving a “no,” a “sure” and a shrug in fast succession.

Minimize into the mountain aspect, the highway was paved however single-track and tough with frozen snow and ice. A couple of hundred ft over the sting, the Qudyalcay River was a line of quicksilver smashing towards its frozen self. We pressed on, Eldar gripping the wheel with white knuckles.

Whether or not the impact of a rising confidence or the seeping fumes, Eldar’s anxiousness lessened with time. He quickly roared us up blind hills, solely to slam on the brakes as we crested. We skidded into patches of ice, and because the rear finish swung out, I reached for the door deal with able to leap for it. He was smitten with the views, generally swerving proper into them.

The steering wheel appeared to have little relationship with the tires; Eldar’s wild, high-elbow twisting had little impact on our course. Fortunately, Ladas bounce, and we had been saved aligned by the snow piled on the wayside by a crew of native males utilizing shovels to clear the highway.

We burned via the final of the clutch on the ultimate ascent into Khinalig, the place we traded its gun smoke stench, together with the gasoline fumes, for the acrid odor of burned straw. Khinalig stays a farming group, and manure is a treasured useful resource. Pressed into bricks, it makes an affordable gas.

On a Sunday morning, Khinalig was peaceable. The principle city is constructed on a hilltop, the homes scrunched collectively. Ruddy ladies with trousers underneath their clothes clomped their approach up and down the icy paths, hauling buckets and manure bricks. The solar was out, and youngsters had rolled the sticky snow into giant balls, each peppered with mud and pebbles. All of the sounds had been of water: the tick-tack of melting snow hitting tin roofs, the popple of gravity-fed pipes pouring mountain water into troughs.

The museum was locked, however the important thing holder was summoned. The show was a jumbled homage to Khinalig’s warrior-shepherd tradition: dusty clay pots, carpet-weaving provides, rusted scimitars and sheepskins. Painted onto the wall in Azeri had been the phrases of Khinaligi poet Rahim Alxas: “Within the spring, my Khinalig, from frost to frost, I can’t change my village, not for 100 Parises, for one thousand Londons.”

On our approach out, we met a person in a rumpled swimsuit carrying a cabbage the dimensions of a bowling ball and a bag of apples. Herder Rehman was on the town for just a few days, getting ready to move again into the mountains together with his sheep. He spoke a realistic English and was an enthusiastic greeter, taking my hand in each his giant, heat paws.

As we fell into step with him, he mentioned, “There are 3,500 individuals on this space,” which means the encompassing mountains, too. “Twenty-one hundred communicate Khinalig. Not unhealthy, not unhealthy.” We handed the college, the place lessons are nonetheless taught in Khinalig. 4 hundred youngsters come to Khinalig to board, a big quantity. Eldar talked about his long-ago work welding there.

Rehman invited us for tea at his home, a two-story constructing on the southern fringe of city. His compound was dominated by a big pile of wooden, introduced up from Quba for about $300 a load. He poked just a few sticks right into a dented silver samovar.

Whereas we waited for the water to boil, Rehman was longing for me to connect with his Wi-Fi, a brand new addition to the home. He makes use of it to hire out his dwelling, amongst different issues. The village has had phone and tv for some years now, opposite to what many individuals advised me within the lowlands.

“The world comes right here now,” Rehman mentioned, including that being a identified a part of the world isn’t a foul factor. Eager to be “off the map” is normally a self-fulfilling future; fairly than keen your self again in time, you’ll your self out of existence.

Like most born-and-bred nation individuals, the Khinaligi aren’t afraid of change, it simply takes longer to reach that deep within the nation. They’re longing for enhancements, Rehman mentioned. They lengthy for them. Khinalig has survived for a very long time on self-sufficiency.

With no eating places and just some frivolously stocked basic shops, they should. However the improved highway means a much less peripatetic life, with much less time spent on the lower-altitude winter pastures. Wi-Fi means connecting with youngsters and kin who’ve left to hunt out different alternatives.

“Individuals do depart,” Rehman mentioned, and talked about his son in Baku, Azerbaijan, finding out at a college. I requested why he himself had stayed so lengthy. “It’s my homeland, and that’s sufficient,” he mentioned. He wished to enhance on what he had earlier than he handed it on to the following technology. He served us tea comprised of mountain thyme, and we ate peanuts and quince jam at a desk abutting his mattress.

As in most historic locations, virtually all the things nearby carries some holy significance. There are historic temples tucked away into the mountains – relics of when the area was stuffed with fire-worshiping Zoroastrians. There’s a legend that the Khinaligi are the descendants of the biblical Noah.

Rehman didn’t have a clue after I talked about the flood, the ark or animals two by two. “Animals?” he mentioned. “Oh, sure. Within the mountains, there are bears and wolves, and at dwelling, we now have goats and canine and cows …” The record went on. I regarded up on the whiteness of the mountains. The wind was whipping a skinny veil of mist off the peaks. I mentioned a silent prayer: Please let me see this place once more.

Info: azerbaijan.journey