Azerbaijan - A Very Well Kept Secret.... - Sheki, Azerbaijan
Sheki, Azerbaijan
Where I stayed
Sheki Palace Hotel
FROM THE GEORGIAN-AZERBAIJAN BORDER TO SHEKI
"Everything in Azerbaijan is Better Than Georgia!"
(But Don't Talk About the Armenian-Azerbaijan War.....)
Our border crossing into Azerbaijan was difficult to say the least, and given our "four Armenian visa situation" and follow up reading on Azerbaijan border procedures, we now wonder whether we would have been allowed into the country without our Georgian guide Keti or our Azerbaijani guide Suleyman. It was a miracle that Keti was allowed by the officials to come with us through No Man's Land and as far as the Customs Desk - and thanks to her insistence in Russian and Suleyman's painstaking assistance, we finally crossed the notorious border.
Our guide Suleyman was quite incredulous about our emotional and heartfelt farewell with our guide Keti "I can see that you have become great friends and that she loves you. But how can she love you? You have only known her for days!" our serious young guide exclaimed.
But we were finally in Azerbaijan, a transcontinental mutli-bordered nation tucked between Russia to the north, Georgia to the north-west, Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, Turkey in the north-west and the huge Caspian Sea to the east. This Muslim nation, comprising a population of some 10 million (most of whom are Azeri*), over the battle dominated centuries has fought hard for its independence. It is now enjoying a booming oil based economy and currently ranked as one of the world's better performing economic reformers.
Little is known about Azerbaijan in our home country of Australia. Comments about our proposed visit were usually greeted with "But tell me - just where is Azerbaijan? And why are you going there?". We were looking forward to exploring this exotic country and were more than relieved to have finally arrived.
*Azeris also known as Azerbaijani Turks are a Turkic ethnic group living mainly in Iran and Azerbaijan who speak Azerbaijani, a Turkic language. They are the second most numerous ethnic group among the Turkic peoples after Anatolian. They are predominantly Shi'i Muslims and have a mixed cultural heritage, including Iranian, Turkic and Caucasian elements. They comprise the largest ethnic group in Azerbaijan and by far the second-largest ethnic group in neighbouring Iran.
Feeling exhausted from our ordeal with the border officials as well as our farewell, we were pleased to escape the heat and flop into the air-conditioned comfort of Suleyman's car. But our intense young guide had other ideas and for another twenty minutes gave us a head pounding briefing on his country. "Everything in Azerbaijan is better than Georgia" he exploded. "Azerbaijan is the gateway to the world! Everyone must pass here to travel from Europe to Asia - and to all parts of the world!". Well, perhaps not exactly....
We sat comatose while our Suleyman lectured us not only about his country and its undoubtable virtues, but also its toxic relationship with Armenia. "Armenia is the Dog of Russia!" raved Suleyman. We had just gone through enough grilling - this was all we needed, I thought... I don't remember much else, other than Alan leaning over to me and murmuring quietly "I think this is going to be a frigg'n long three days (in Azerbaijan)... and oh yes, don't mention the Armenian-Azerbaijan war!!!". Thankfully, we were however to enjoy the highly passionate Suleyman as our guide - but it sure was an intense introduction.
We were highly relieved to begin our journey from the Georgian border toward our destination of the ancient city of Sheki. As our road passed through pretty verdant country lined with flowering hazelnut, walnut, mulberry and chestnut trees as well as the lovely cool climate trees of beech and birch, we began to relax. We were travelling through the Balaken Rayon (a rayon is an administrative district, of which there are 56 in Azerbaijan), an area squeezed between Georgia and the Russian Republic of Dagestan, and once part of Georgia. The countryside was surprisingly beautiful with tall, heavily forested areas interspersed with lush green pastures. Even though Azerbaijan borders with Georgia where we had been travelling for some time, for some unknown reason, I expected it to be a much harsher and drier environment - something looking like our entry to Iran, I thought. Perhaps it was all the stories we had heard in Armenia and Georgia about Azerbaijan being a difficult country that illogically coloured my thinking or perhaps we had seen much footage of the semi desert capital city of Baku - but I certainly didn't expect such a soft and wealthy looking environment.
Our travels took us along the picturesque tree lined road to Sheki, through the village of Katex and onto the country's hazelnut capital township of Zaqatala. We were interested to hear from Suleyman that seraculture (silk worm breeding and silk processing) was a highly lucrative industry in the area, as was apiculture; the region being well known for its high quality honey. Apart from various tree nut industries, the other main agricultural crops included fine looking pome and stone orchards of apples, pears, peaches and plums, as well as neatly cultivated tea plantations. Sleek black cattle dotted the verdant countryside. Occasional flocks of sheep were herded along the road by woolly hatted shepherds and like in Australia, seemed to have absolute right of passageway. Even the farm houses were attractive and appeared to be well maintained.
The impressive township of Zaqatala was housed with wide clean streets lined with pleasant stone buildings; alpine in appearance with steeply pitched roofs and surrounded by lovely flowering rose gardens. It certainly was looking prosperous and again, in stark contrast to what we had expected. We were beginning to find, even this early in our travels through this intriguing country, that Azerbaijan was indeed a well kept secret.
As we began to settle so did our Suleyman. As it happened he had apparently been up since 2.00 am to undertake the 400 kilometer drive from his home city of Baku to the border and he was obviously dog tired. Our only concern was that he was becoming far too relaxed, his eyes drooping and occasionally his head tilting to the side as he tried to keep awake. We had experienced exhausted drivers on several of our previous trips and it was a potentially deadly situation. Suleyman gulped several cans of Red Bull before he suggested that we stop for lunch. It sounded like a great idea.
It is a pity that we don't have what I can only describe as "garden cafes" in our home country of Australia. A fabulous alternative to the ubiquitous road houses or even worse (apologies to my McDonalds-O-Philic cousin Philip) the plastic chain take away venues of KFC or McDonalds etc, these cafes provided healthy, good local food in very attractive garden settings with private tables, often under a cabana type housing. The little tree lined cafe just out of Zaqatala was a perfect place for a stop for us and hopefully a bit of a rest for Suleyman.
We travelled through beautiful scenery from Zaqatala toward Sheki, our journey flanked on the north by the soaring snow capped peaks of the Greater Caucasus, forming a natural border with the intriguing country of the Dagestan. It reminded me very much of our first glimpse from the Chinese border town of Tashkorgan, of the massive Pamir and Karakoram Ranges ominously guarding the border of China and Pakistan "What was over that mysterious border?" we wondered. Once again the seduction of a land border was very alluring. Perhaps, like Pakistan, we may eventually visit this much maligned and reputedly dangerous, wild mountainous nation.
Suleyman, now quite laid back and presumably energised by his lunch break, provided us with fascinating local information about Azerbaijan, its history and its politics. A school teacher by profession, he had been working in the tourism industry for some years and his spoken English was excellent. Suleyman was one of the most serious and intense guides we had encountered for some time, and was absolutely passionate about his country. In Suleyman's eyes, his beloved Azerbaijan could do no wrong. He was also intensely proud of the Azerbaijani people and of his extended family who came from Lahij, a tiny ancient village not far from the Dagestan border and where we were to visit the following day.
It always make us laugh about how rapidly our moods can swing when we are tired and have travelled for some time. We call it the "Camp Granada Syndrome" (in reference to Allan Sherman's hilarious old song lyrics - refer to other blogs!). We began to enjoy our travels and Suleyman's now rather informative chatter. Buoyed from what we were seeing and hearing, perhaps Azerbaijan would in fact be a lovely three days....
We were interested in Suleyman's views on Azerbaijan's politics and politicians - after all they are not a very popular race in our country, or indeed throughout the world. Conversely, Suleyman was very positive about the current President Ilham Aliyev and even more so of Ilham's father Heydar Aliyev, a former leader of Soviet Azerbaijan who is attributed to uniting the country during the tumultuous and corrupt days of the 1990's, following the fall of the Soviet. Not surprisingly, Suleyman didn't mention the allegations of fraud and corruption, nor of the Aliyev's elimination of their political opposition. But then again, the country had stabilised and modernised, the economy was booming and then of course there was oil - and plenty of it....
TRAVELS THROUGH THE FORMER REGION OF ALBANIAN CAUCASIA - ORIGINAL HOME OF THE NORDIC VIKINGS?
Keen to show us just how secular his country was, Suleyman could not wait to stop the car to show us a tiny beautiful, quaint old church located in a picture perfect position at the top of a steep craggy hill. "You see, although Azerbaijan is a Muslim nation, we are a tolerant people. Unlike other countries, we wish to live in peace and have places of worship for all religions!" he exclaimed. Thankfully he didn't refer specifically to the strictly Christian countries of Armenia and Georgia (who are also tolerant of other religions) - but we got the gist...
The Church of Kish is an ancient Caucasian Albanian chapel located in the village of Kish, just five kilometers north of Sheki, and what was once part of the region of Caucasian Albania. Interestingly, the ancient kingdom of Albania - now referred to as Caucasian Albania for disambiguation with the modern country of Albania - is a historical region which was located in the eastern Caucasus where it comprised an area which now includes present day Azerbaijan and parts of southern Dagestan. Around the 1st centuries BC and AD, the land of the Greater Caucasus was divided between Kolchis in the west, Caucasian Iberia in the centre and Caucasian Albania in the east. The region was bordered by Armenia and to the south-west by ancient Atropane.
The history of the Caucasian Albanians still strikes a raw nerve with modern day Azeris mostly because of the disputed "fact" that they were never Armenians! According to local historians, this is the very reason that Azerbaijan is so vehement about their moral rights to the "occupied" (by Armenia) enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
History has some strange quirks. Although Christianity was supposed to have entered Caucasian Albania as early as the 1st century AD, the Kingdom of Albania was formally converted to Christianity at the beginning of the 4th century AD by none other than the Armenian evangeliser St Gregory the Illuminator - the very same person who blessed modern enemy Armenia as the very first Caucasian Christian state. Religious struggles occurred in the 5th century when the Sassanid King of Persia for a short period of time forcibly converted Albania to Zoroastrianism. Albania then reverted back to Christianity until the 8th century when following the conquest of the Arabs, the country was largely converted to a Muslim nation.
A golden era of the Azeri culture flourished in the 12th century but like so many nations in this region, the country was later razed by the Mongols as well as enduring many enormous earthquakes.
During the following centuries, the country's fate was dominated by Persian, Arab, Turkish and then Russian dominance. When Iran was forced to cede its Caucasian territories to Russia in the 19th century, the re-alignment of the borders resulted in the ethnic Azerbaijanis becoming split between Iran and Azerbaijan, and diminished Azeri territories in favour of Armenia. Following the fall of the Russian Empire during World War I, Azerbaijan collapsed into internal turmoil. In 1920 it was again invaded by Russia and following this complex and chaotic historic time which included yet another World War, Azerbaijan remained a state of Russia.
Finally, Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Ancient Albania today is part of the modern country of Azerbaijan - the world's first ever Muslim majority democratic and secular republic.
KIS CHURCH OF CAUCASIAN ALBANIA
On our climb to the Church of Kis, we were quite astounded when Suleyman proudly told us that ancient Caucasian Albania was the original home of the Nordic Vikings who later moved north to the Scandinavian area (you could well ask why any sane race would move from the lush environment of present day Azerbaijan to an icy location in Nordic seas..). The theory, which is apparently well accepted with great national pride by the Azerbaijanis (and is probably used more as a tourism gimic), was the brainchild of the much fabled Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl who was perhaps better known for sailing his balsa wood raft the Kon Tiki across the South Pacific in 1947. Heyerdahl was convinced that his own red headed ancestors - the Vikings of Scandinavia - moved by sea somewhere near the Turkic speaking area around Kis.
Scientific experts strongly contest Heyerdahl's theory but it's a great story anyway. An 800 year old Icelandic saga mentions Odin, a Norse god and mythical ancestor of the Vikings as having migrated from a country whose name of As-hov or Aser could vaguely be extrapolated to the name of "Azerbaijan". Some of the local petroglyphs depict ships similar to those used by Norse sea raiders and there are some nebulous affinities between Azerbaijani and Nordic folk music. But according to modern research sources, that it is about all of the so-called evidence.
Kis Church is the oldest Christian church in the Caucasus, with some schools of thought believing it to be founded in the 1st century AD by the Apostle Eliseus. It has functioned at different times as a Caucasian Albanian Apostolic Church, a Chalcedonian Church and later as an Armenian Apostolic Church.
It is probably no co-incidence that between 2000-2003, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs funded a joint project with Azerbaijan for archaeological research and restoration of the church (Heyerdahl would have been greatly impressed). Interestingly, carbon analysis of various precious metal adornments found in an ancient site beneath the altar of the church date back to around 11,000 BC!
Today the church has been lovingly restored with part of it developed as a well presented tri-lingual museum. A plaque on the wall of the church states:
"The temple in the village of Kish enjoys a special status among Albanian monuments. It is of outstanding value not only as an architectural monument but an object of historical past as well..... Noteworthy is that the temple of Kish is a remarkable historical monument symbolising the start of Christianity not only in Caucasian Albania (Azerbaijan), but entire Caucasus as a whole nearly 2,000 years ago...".
Suleyman left us for around forty minutes to explore the church, its mysterious crypts and museum. The old weathered stone chapel exuded the strange eerie ambiance reminiscent of many of the ancient churches we had visited during our travels through the Caucasus. The excavated glass covered crypts were especially fascinating with almost perfectly preserved bones of ancient unnamed (perhaps Bronze Age) skeletons. Interestingly, the Viking mystique survives at the tiny chapel because of the graves. Between the 3rd to the 10th centuries some extraordinarily tall people were buried at this site; one woman being almost 7' 3" (2.2 meters). Folklore suggests that this may be evidence of tribes of gargantuan proto-Scandinavians who roamed the wild mountains of old Albania. Well, again a good story - but maybe?
The museum was a great place to read up on ancient Albania. It was pleasantly well described in three languages with displays of beautifully preserved artifacts. Like many of the churches we had visited, the surrounds of the chapel were meticuously kept with lovely deciduous trees and flowering gardens of peony roses.
SHEKI - NUKHA FORTRESS AND THE XAN SERAYI
Late in the afternoon we arrived in the pretty ancient capital township of Sheki. Set amongst beautiful soft forested hills, it is said to be one of Azerbaijan's loveliest towns.
Ancient Seki (or otherwise known until 1968 as "Nukha") was originally located at Kis but following devastating floods in 1772, was moved to its present location where it became the new royal capital of the Shaki Khanate. The khanate was ceded to the Russians in 1805 but Nukha, famous for its sericulture, continued to flourish as a silk weaving town and important trading junction where the old caravan route between the capital city of Baku and the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, linked in with the cross mountain route to Dagestan, and then into Russia. At the height of its trade there were five working caravanserais (inns for the accommodation of trading caravans) located in Sheki.
In the long shadows of a glorious sunny afternoon, Sheki was resplendent; its steep cobblestone streets lined with ancient towering plane or chinar trees, framing lovely old stone buildings and splendid parklands. The township was shrouded in history and to our delight, virtually free of tourists.
Tired after our long day, we wondered how we would fare exploring yet another historic site - but the old Nukha Fortress and its enclosed old khan's palace, the Xan Sarayi, made for easy wandering. Today, the small exquisitely beautiful 18th century palace contained within its sturdy stone walls, is regarded as one of the South Caucasus’ most iconic buildings. Following its completion in 1762, it was used as the khan’s administrative building, and is the sole surviving building of some 40 royal structures within the fortress compound. It is set in a walled rose garden behind two huge plane trees thought to be planted in 1530. The lovely facade features silvered stalactite arches with unusual geometric patterns in dark-blue, turquoise and ochre. Only one room deep, the tiny palace’s interior is lavishly decorated with intricate, colourful murals. The palace houses also the Radisbey Historical-Regional Ethnographic Museum.
Interestingly, the extraordinarily detailed exterior and interior palace walls reminded us of the intricate design work of palaces we had witnessed some years before in Indian Jaipur - and given its strategic location on one of the more famous silk road routes between Asia and Europe, it is probably not surprising that it was once a melting pot of cultures and influences of so many nations linked by this important crossroad location.
Photography is not allowed within the palace or the museum. It was not disappointing - we had certainly had enough for the day. A young English woman from Leeds joined us on our exploration of the palace. She had arrived in Sheki that morning on the night train from Baku to find that she could not exchange any currency at the local ATM and was understandably concerned about paying for her accommodation. We offered to give her some money and asked Suleyman if we could give her a lift back to her hotel. To her credit, she refused both offers. In her early twenties, I must say we were very impressed with her independence and brave spirit. I think our Suleyman was impressed too - and perhaps a little disappointed that she did not accept our offer of a lift back to her hotel... After all, she was very attractive and Suleyman had often (and very seriously) referred that afternoon to the fact that he was considered by Azerbaijani standards to be far too old to be single and of the pressure his family were placing on him to marry and settle down!
Our day nearly over, we spent the last hour wandering around the old city and an ancient caravanserai where Suleyman was staying for the night. Stately and full of atmosphere, the caravanserai was a great place to chill out for a quiet and relaxing late afternoon before heading off to our Sheki Palace Hotel.
Suleyman had also referred that afternoon to something about being interviewed by the media when we were in Baku. It was all a bit vague and the details lost in his translation. We hoped that by the time we reached Baku, he would have forgotten about it. The last thing we needed was a television interview about a country we had only just landed in. We recalled our nerve wracking situation being interviewed by Pakistan National Television political journalists when we were somehow caught up in a political rally in the militarised zone of Kaphlu, on the disputed Pakistan-Indian border during our travels in 2012 (yes, just what our Australian Department of Foreign Affairs gives dire warning of "Never, ever get involved in a political rally when you are overseas, especially in a politically fragile country....").
Surely, he would forget this idea.... we hoped.