Nakhchivan

The city stands on one of the oldest inhabited stretches of the Aras valley, where Bronze Age settlement is attested and where the rock-salt seams at Duzdag have been worked since antiquity. Local tradition ties the place to Noah, reading the name as the place of the first descent after the flood, and a shrine on the southern hill marks the grave assigned to him; the same hill carried the fortress that guarded the crossroads below.

Its high point came in the 12th century, when Nakhchivan served as a capital of the Eldiguzid atabegs, who governed much of the region under the Seljuks. Their court architect Ajami Nakhchivani built the Yusif ibn Kuseyir mausoleum in 1162 and the Momine Khatun mausoleum in 1186, and the two brick towers, with their patterned surfaces and Kufic bands, remain the finest medieval monuments in the exclave. Mongol, Timurid, Safavid and Ottoman armies passed through afterwards, and a local khanate held the city in the 18th century before Russia annexed the territory in 1828 under the Treaty of Turkmenchay.

The early 20th century brought war and upheaval to the whole region, and in 1921 the Treaty of Kars made Nakhchivan an autonomous territory under Azerbaijan. The Soviet decades left it a provincial capital of wide avenues and apartment blocks. Heydar Aliyev, later president of Azerbaijan, was born in the city and led the exclave in 1991–93. The war of the early 1990s cut its rail and road links through Armenia, and the city has lived with that isolation ever since, rebuilt in recent decades with new boulevards, museums and public buildings.

Nakhchivan's population is almost entirely Azerbaijani, and being cut off has sharpened a strong local identity. Nakhchivanis have a national reputation for orderliness and for loyalty to the Aliyev family, which comes from here, and public life is tidier and more tightly managed than on the mainland; open political argument is rare.

The city's cultural claims rest on poetry and craft. Huseyn Javid, the playwright and poet whose work is part of the school curriculum across Azerbaijan, was born here, and his marble tomb in the centre is the closest thing the city has to a civic shrine. Carpet weaving is the other old craft, and the khans' palace in the centre now holds the carpet museum, while mugham and ashiq minstrel music are heard at weddings, which are large and loud even here.

Turkey's presence is felt in trade, television and the bridge over the Aras at Sadarak, while the Iranian border a short drive south brings the other great neighbouring influence. Shia Islam predominates and observance is somewhat more visible than in Baku, though the pattern of relaxed, private practice holds. Novruz, the spring new year, is the festival that matters most, with bonfires, sweets and visits to relatives. Guests are received with tea, fruit and sweets almost before they are seated, and hospitality is regarded as a point of regional pride.

Around 64,000 people were counted in the city at the turn of the century, in a capital of rebuilt boulevards, parks, government offices and low apartment blocks. Ordubad, Julfa, Sharur and Shahbuz are the other towns, and the rest of the exclave is villages along the irrigated valley.

The economy rests on farming and the public sector. Grain, vegetables, livestock and the valley's fruit and silk are the mainstays, together with rock salt from Duzdag, mineral water bottled at Badamli and Sirab, construction and government employment. Because the land route to Baku is closed, trade runs mostly through Turkey and Iran, which makes many goods dearer than on the mainland and ties families to flights and the long road south.

The rhythm of the day is quiet: markets in the morning, tea houses through the afternoon, a walk in the parks in the evening and early nights. Summer heat pushes activity to the ends of the day. Emigration to Baku, Turkey and Russia is common among the young, and the money they send home matters to many households. The hope most often voiced is that transit routes will reopen and end the exclave's long separation from the rest of the country.

The table here is Azerbaijani with a strong Iranian Azerbaijani accent, carried across the Aras. Lamb is the main meat: kebabs grilled over vine wood, bozbash, a lamb and chickpea soup often thickened with the valley's fruit, and dolma of vine or cabbage leaves. Bread is baked in clay tandir ovens, and rice dishes appear at celebrations rather than every day. Yoghurt and sheep's cheese from the mountain villages turn up at most meals, and dovga, a yoghurt soup with herbs and rice, is eaten warm or cold.

Fruit is what the region is known for. The dry, sunny valley produces apricots, mulberries, grapes, quinces, peaches and pomegranates in quantity, eaten fresh in season and dried for the winter; sacks of dried apricots and mulberries stand in the markets, and Ordubad is celebrated for the number of grape varieties grown in its gardens. Walnuts, honey and fruit leathers made from pressed plum or apricot pulp are sold alongside them.

Two mineral waters, Badamli and Sirab, are bottled at springs in the mountains and drunk throughout Azerbaijan, so the local brand is usually on the table. Tea closes everything: strong, black, in armudu glasses, with jam, sliced lemon or a lump of sugar, and sweets such as pakhlava and shekerbura at festivals.