Shamakhi

Shamakhi is one of the oldest towns in Azerbaijan, identified with a settlement first recorded, as Kamachia, by the geographer Ptolemy in the 1st or 2nd century AD, and it grew where the routes between the Caspian plain and the mountain passes met. From the early medieval centuries it was the seat of the Shirvanshahs, the dynasty that ruled Shirvan from the 9th century to the 16th, and its Friday mosque was founded in the 8th century, among the earliest in the Caucasus. The town lived on silk: Venetian, Russian and English merchants all came for it, and in 1562 Anthony Jenkinson, an agent of the Muscovy Company, described the town, an early link between England and Persia.

Earthquakes shaped the place as much as trade did. Shocks destroyed the town repeatedly, more than once pushing the Shirvanshahs to move their court to Baku, and the mosque and the khans' tombs were rebuilt again and again on the same ground. Safavid and Ottoman armies fought over Shirvan, and in the 18th century a Shamakhi khanate emerged from the collapse of Persian control, before the Russian Empire absorbed it in the early 19th century.

Under Russian rule Shamakhi was at first the capital of the province, but the earthquake of 1859 prompted the administration to move to Baku, and a second severe earthquake in 1902 levelled much of what remained. Oil was meanwhile making Baku rich, and the old capital of Shirvan became a provincial town. It was rebuilt in the Soviet period as a district centre, and the Juma Mosque was restored early in this century.

Shamakhi's reputation rests on craft and poetry. The town may have given its name to the Soumak rugs, and the Shirvan carpets woven across the district, small and tightly knotted, are among the best known Azerbaijani designs, and the town's silk supplied looms far beyond the Caucasus. The satirist Mirza Alakbar Sabir was born here in 1862 and wrote the verses that made him a national figure, and Seyid Azim Shirvani, poet and educator, also came from the town; both are part of local identity in a way that plaques and school names make plain.

Mugham, the modal art music of Azerbaijan, and ashiq minstrel songs are still heard at weddings, which are large, loud affairs with zurna and drum outside the hall. Shamakhi was known in the 19th century for its dancers and musicians, who performed for visitors and travellers passing through Shirvan.

Life follows Shia Muslim observance in most households, but as elsewhere in Azerbaijan practice is relaxed and largely private: the mosque fills on Fridays and at the two Bayram festivals, while Novruz, the spring new year, is the occasion everyone keeps, with bonfires, painted eggs and trays of sweets. Wine has been made in the district for centuries, and its presence alongside religious observance is one of the contradictions that Azerbaijanis themselves point out. Visitors are received with tea and an insistent host.

About 30,000 people live in the town, the centre of a district of villages spread through the hills, and its population has grown slowly as rural families move in. The centre is low-rise and unhurried: shops along the main street, a bazaar busiest in the morning, government offices, a bus stand where shared taxis fill for Baku, and tea houses that stay busy all afternoon.

The district economy is farming. Vineyards, orchards of apples, walnuts and pomegranates, grain and sheep occupy most families, and several wineries buy the local crop, the Madrasa grape above all. Hill honey, dairy and carpet weaving add income, and tourism has grown as Baku families take rooms in the cooler hills in summer and stop on the way to Lahij and Gabala. Many households also depend on a member working in Baku or abroad.

The day begins early with farm and market work, slows through a long hot afternoon and revives in the evening, when the squares fill and children play late in summer. Seismic risk shapes building rules and local memory alike, and the concerns people voice are familiar across rural Azerbaijan: jobs for the young, the state of village roads, water for the orchards and the steady pull of the capital two hours down the road.

Shamakhi eats the food of the Shirvan hills, which leans on lamb, dairy and the produce of the orchards. Kebabs grilled over vine wood are the standard meal out, often cooked with tomato and aubergine and served with lavash, raw onion, sumac and a bundle of herbs; sadj, a dish of meat and vegetables cooked on an iron griddle at the table, is shared by several people. Bozbash, a lamb and chickpea soup, and dovga, a warm or cold yoghurt soup with herbs and rice, are home cooking. Dolma of vine leaves comes into its own where the vines are, and bread is baked in clay tandir ovens in village yards.

The hills supply the rest. Sheep's cheese and yoghurt come down from the summer pastures, honey from forest hives is sold along the roads, and autumn brings grapes, apples, walnuts, quinces and pomegranates to the bazaar, much of it dried or made into jam for winter. Preserves of walnut and white cherry are spooned straight into a saucer beside the tea.

Wine is the town's distinctive product. The Madrasa grape, named after a village in the district, makes the red most associated with Shamakhi, and wineries in the surrounding hills also work international varieties. Tea, strong and black in armudu glasses, closes every meal and fills every afternoon.