Sunday, August 30, 2009

Sheki, Azerbaijan...

My dear readers, thank you very much for visiting my blog and also for leaving your comments.
I am just back from my trip to Sheki and in coming days and weeks I will try sharing with you my photos and thoughts. Before I start writing this post I want to tell that you could check out the archive of this blog if you are interested in more information and photos as I have been writing here since 2007...

For those of you who are new to this blog and don’t know or hear for the first time about Azerbaijan – Azerbaijan is the country that borders with Iran (765 km) and Turkey (15 km) in the south, Russia in the north (300 km), Georgia in the north-west (480 km) and Armenia in the west (1007 km). The territory also includes Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic and Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan is in war/ceasefire situation with Armenia over its 20% of territory including Dağlıq Qarabağ (Nagorniy Karabakh) area.

With 86,600 square km of territory and around 8.6 million of population Azerbaijan is blessed with nine climate zones out of "available" eleven and rich natural resources including so “popular” nowadays oil and gas.

My parents originally come from town called Sheki in north-west of the country, city that historically was located on Silk Route, is famous for its cuisine and humour and is surrounded with beautiful and impressive mountains...Mountains that are there to stay no matter who comes and goes, which regime rules and what people do. Examples of grandness of nature they look very proud, beautiful and wise to me…whenever I visit Sheki I make sure to raise my eyes and smile at them and “acknowledge” their presence…thus in Sheki nature gave us the opportunity to look up at sky enjoying the mountains and in capital Baku to look far at horizon enjoying the Caspian Sea…

Today I am posting the photos of the same landscapes and the same mountains that I might have posted before hoping that you will also find these scenes beautiful and not tiring to enjoy again and again…
beautiful nature "hiding" human imperfection...
some mountains are "fluffy", some "shaggy" :) these ones are definitely "fluffy" :)...
view from my granddad's, now uncles' street...this is not technically perfect picture, but the mountains are so close and pretty that I am posting the photo as it is...sorry...
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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The claim that Armenians occupy over 20% of Azerbaijan's territory, which is so often repeated by Azerbaijan's government is incorrect.

There are several credible neutral sources that contradict this claim. According to the English language Wikipedia article on NKR, the area controlled by Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is approximately 11,700 square kilometers. The area of the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan Republic is 86,600 square kilometers. If you divide 11,700 by 86,600 you will get approximately 13.5%. In fact, Thomas De Waal, the author of "Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War", concludes that the Armenian controlled portion of Azerbaijan is 13.6%. The link to his calculations is on the internet:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/russian/in_depth/newsid_4685000/4685287.stm

(Interestingly, that web page also lists some credible numbers of the refugees from both sides. Again, the numbers are different from official figures.)

Another independent source, the CIA World Factbook, claims that: "Armenia supports ethnic Armenian secessionists in Nagorno-Karabakh and since the early 1990s has militarily occupied 16% of Azerbaijan". I personally disagree with the CIA number, perhaps they probably count the whole Aghdam and Fizuli rayons even though NKR controlls only approximately 1/2 of those. Nonetheless, all of the numbers mentioned above are far below the official "over 20%".

farida said...

Ayten, how beautiful those mountains are. I envy you:)) I want to be in Sheki too:)) In that picture from your uncle's street, are those beehives in the background?

Ayten Qiyas-Rustamova Айтен Гияс-Рустамова Aytən Qiyas-Rüstəmova said...

Farida, salam :)) where did you see beehive on my post...i cant see them, so dont have an answer for you! Hope you and family are well! :)

farida said...

Ayten, ashaghidan ikinci sekilde:) ele bil ki ari evleridir:) amma belke de hasarin "tumbochka"laridir:) menim gozume ele geldi:))

Ayten Qiyas-Rustamova Айтен Гияс-Рустамова Aytən Qiyas-Rüstəmova said...

Farida, yox hasaryn "design"-dir, Sheki khan sarayinin garshysy...xxx

Shubana Tariq said...

hi
weldone
doing great job
great blog with nice pr.
keep it up

farida said...

Ayten, do you know what the best place to have PITI in Sheki is and what's special about their piti? I need that info for my book. Pls let me know. My book will be eternally thankful to you:)

Admin said...

when "omar" arrived azerbaijan, sent somebody to "Muhammad" and told : muhammad muhammad!! we found paradise that you were talking about before.
chox gozel bir olmalidir..
yasha ayten