Introduction to VALIDATION COPY 1.0 JUNE 2007

GEOGRAPHY Azerbaijan occupies the southeastern part of the Caucasus, descending to the Caspian Sea, between and the Russian Federation (). The country is located between Europe and Asia, as the Caucasus Mountains are the conventional border between the two continents. So, the northeast half is in Europe and the southwest half is in Asia. Bear this in mind when looking for Azerbaijan on a map or in a reference book since it may be classified under Europe or Asia. Azerbaijan is a member of the Council of Europe.

Azeris like to describe the country as “shaped like an eagle”, with its “wings” spread on the Caucasus and its “head”, the Absheron Peninsula, over the Caspian Sea.

Geographic co-ordinates: 40 30 N, 47 30 E (380 25"-410 55" of n.l. and 440 50"-500 52" e.l.) The time zone in Azerbaijan is GMT +4 Elevation extremes: -lowest point: Caspian Sea -28 m -highest point: Bazarduzu Dagi 4,466 m

1 CLIMATE

Azerbaijan has a varied climate. It is subtropical and dry in central and eastern Azerbaijan, subtropical and humid in the southeast (Lenkoran lowlands), temperate along the shores of the Caspian Sea, and cold at the higher mountain elevations.

In the climate is cool in the winter, averaging 4°C (40 F) in January. Summers are hot (up to 40°C /112° F) and humid because of the sea. There are often strong winds, especially in winter. Snow rarely settles in the city. Spring and autumn are pleasant and there is a great deal of sunshine from April to October

Because most of Azerbaijan receives scant rainfall - on average 152 (6”) to 254 (10”) millimeters annually - agricultural areas require irrigation. The heaviest precipitation occurs in the highest elevations of the Caucasus and in the Lenkoran' Lowlands in the far southeast. The yearly average in these areas exceeds 1,000 millimeters (40”).

POPULATION

Population of the Republic of Azerbaijan: 7,798,497 (July 2002 est.) The average population density of Azerbaijan is 86 persons/km2. The Absheron Peninsula is more densely populated (800 pers/km2). The country is still largely rural, with only 53 percent of the population residing in urban areas, and 47 percent in rural areas. Eighty percent of the population is concentrated in valleys and low lands ideal for agriculture and large industrial centers. This area includes Kur-Araz, Samur- Devechi and Lankaran lowlands, as well as the Ganja-Gazakh and PriAraz valleys, and Absheron Peninsula.

Azerbaijan is the most populous country in the Caucasus. The Azeri people constitute 90% of the population of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Although it contains people of many different nationalities, the republic has become more ethnically homogeneous in recent years. The proportion of Azeris, who have traditionally comprised about four-fifths of the population, has increased since the conflict with over Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988. Large numbers of Azeri refugees have flowed over the border from Armenia, and large numbers of Russians, Armenians, and other nationalities have left Azerbaijan. Most of these ethnic groups have resided in the area of present- day Azerbaijan for centuries, although Slavs only recently arrived in large numbers with the industrialization boom of the twentieth century. The population growth rate was estimated at 0.38% in 2002.

2 HISTORY

The oldest petroglyphs found in Gobustan, Azerbaijan date from the 12th century BC.

Later, European invaders also left their marks: inscriptions left by Alexander the Great's cohorts in the 4th century BC and 2,000-year-old graffiti left by Trajan's Roman legionnaires. In Gobustan you can still find inscriptions left by the Romans and the Greeks.

Several tribes thrived in ancient Azerbaijan and left their names on the regions they inhabited: Caspian, Mannai, Media and Caucasian Albania. The Mannai and the Medes were two powerful, advanced states that emerged from this area in the 3rd millennium BC.

The region was first integrated into the Persian Empire in 550 BC when the king of the Medes, Astyages, was defeated and imprisoned by his grandson Cyrus II the Great. The empire stretched from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean. Christianity arrived early in the 1st century, but by 115 AD, Rome withdrew when Trajan's armies were infected by the plague. By the 3rd century the Apostolic Autocephalous church was fully established and religious and cultural life thrived. Christianity was widely accepted in the 5th century (north of the Araz River) after St. Grigor the Illuminator converted and baptized its king, Urnayr. During the first four decades of the 7th century Christian Azerbaijan fiercely resisted Arab invaders, (under the last Albanian king, Javanshir), but by 642 the Muslim Arabs completed their conquest of Azerbaijan. The Arabs never exerted direct rule, but used local chieftains instead. However they managed to convert the region to Islam. Under the early became the main seat of power, and the area became the province of "ar-Ran", later Arran.

By the 11th century new masters replaced the Arabs: the Seljuk Turks. Seljuk tribes migrated west in the 10th and 11th centuries, and by 1018 the warlord Chagri Bey reached Azerbaijan. The Seljuk Turks moved further west and defeated the Byzantines in 1071 at the battle of Malazgirt. This opened the door to Anatolia, and initiated the beginning of the end of European presence in what is modern day . There followed a steady influx of immigrants and by the 14th century Azerbaijan was inhabited by people of mixed Persian-Turkish origin. There was also a gradual replacement of the Persian language by a Turkic dialect that evolved into modern Azeri. However, not even the Turks could resist the overwhelming power of the Mongol hordes led by Temudjin, otherwise known as Genghis Khan. (Muslims baptized him as the "Scourge of God".) Gengis Khan's soldiers devastated Azerbaijan with legendary cruelty in the 13th century. Nevertheless, Mongol power was usurped by the Tartar warlord Timur Lenk (also known as Tamerlane). Timur became king of Transoxiana and built a new Persian empire. Timur's descendants ruled the empire from 1405 till 1499, when a native Azeri dynasty emerged: the Sefavids. Shah Ismail made Shia Islam the official religion of this kingdom, and imposed it with great cruelty on the Sunni population, creating a divide between the Azeris and the Sunni Ottoman Turks. The Sefavid dynasty came to an end in 1722, undermined by the rivalry with the Ottoman Empire, internal strife, and an Afghan invasion.

3 With a mostly Shia Muslim population, Azerbaijan remained within Persia's political and religious sphere of influence until the nineteenth century.

During the first years of the 19th century re-awoke its expansionist dreams in the Caucasus. The Tsar's army first occupied and then conquered most of Azerbaijan in1806 and 1807. By 1807 Nakhchivan was the only khanate to remain independent. Persia was in decline in 1813 (under Shah Fath Ali) when the Russians attacked. The Azeri khanate was ceded to the Russian Tzar Alexander I, thus bringing the northern part of Azerbaijan within the European sphere of influence. In the treaty of Gulistan, Persia and Russia agreed that Azerbaijan would be divided along the Araz River, with Russian Azerbaijan north of the river, and Iranian Azerbaijan to the South. In 1826 Persia again challenged the Russian hold over the region, but was defeated in the decisive battle of Ganja. Russian troops then seized Tabriz. Azerbaijan’s modern borders were defined in 1828 under the treaty of Turkmanchay, between Russia and Persia. The Azeri land south of the Araz River remained part of Persia and is now part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In the nineteenth century, Russian influence over daily life in Azerbaijan was less prominent than the influence of indigenous religious and political elites, and the cultural and intellectual influences of Persia and Turkey. During most of the nineteenth century, the extracted commodities from Azerbaijan and invested little in the economy. However, the exploitation of oil in Azerbaijan at the end of the nineteenth century brought an influx of Russians into Baku, increasing Russian influence and expanding the local economy. Although ethnic Russians came to dominate the oil business and government administration in the late 1800s, many Azeris became prominent in particular sectors of oil production, such as oil transport on the Caspian Sea. The oil boom transformed the capital of the northern part of Azerbaijan, Baku, into a cosmopolitan, industrial center. After the Bolshevik Revolution, and facing imminent subjugation by the Red Army, Azerbaijan attempted to negotiate a union with Persia, but this effort was mooted when the Red Army invaded Azerbaijan in April 1920. Russian leader Vladimir I. Lenin justified the invasion with the importance of Baku region's oil to the Bolsheviks, who were still embroiled in a civil war. In September 1920, Azerbaijan signed a treaty with Russia. The treaty unified Russian and Azeri military forces, economies, and foreign trade. It allowed Azeri to maintain political independence, though this was superficial.

4 The Soviet invasion of Azerbaijan in 1922 initiated a seventy-one-year period of total political and economic control under the . The borders and formal status of Azerbaijan underwent a period of change and uncertainty in the 1920s and 1930s, but then remained stable through the end of Soviet control in 1991. The first communist president of Azerbaijan was the activist and writer . In the 'honey moon' period of the Soviet state, Narimanov became a popular leader, despite his being responsible for numerous killings and deportations. Stalin’s agents murdered Narimanov in 1925. The 1930's brought an intensification of purges induced by Stalin's paranoia. The crackdown on all forms of religion was particularly hard, targeting not only the people but also the buildings. During this period both the magnificent Alexander Nevski Cathedral and the holiest Islamic site in Baku, the Bibi Heibat shrine, were demolished. During Stalin's regime, Azerbaijan suffered, as did other Soviet republics, from forced collectivization and far-reaching purges. Yet during the same period, Azerbaijan also achieved significant gains in industrialization and literacy levels that were impressive in comparison with those of other Muslim states of the Middle East at that time. After Stalin, 's intrusions were less sweeping but nonetheless authoritarian. In 1959 Nikita S. Khrushchev, first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), moved to purge leaders of the Azeri Communist Party (ACP) because of corruption and nationalist tendencies. Leonid I. Brezhnev, Khrushchev's successor, also removed ACP leaders for nationalist leanings, and appointed Heydar Aliyev in 1969 as the new ACP leader. Heydar Aliyev emerged as the most influential Azeri politician during the post war years was. He served successively as the head of the Azeri KGB (1967), head of the republic itself (1969), and then as a full member of the Soviet Politburo (1982) and first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. Mikhail S. Gorbachev removed Aliyev in 1987, ostensibly for health reasons, although later Aliyev was accused of corruption. The Soviet Union started to dissolve towards the end of the 1980s. Popular discontent over the progress of the war led to the marginalization of the Communist Party in Azerbaijan and the rise of the nationalist Popular Front during the late 1980s. In September 1989, the Azeri Supreme Court passed a resolution of sovereignty, among the first such resolutions in the Soviet republics. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the legislative body of the Soviet Union, declared this resolution invalid in November 1989.

Rival powers in the region, especially the Russian Federation, Turkey, Iran and the Gulf states are now looking to secure influence in the country through aid packages, support for religious groups and political parties and the like. In addition, the discovery in the 1980s of potentially huge offshore oil and gas fields in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea has drawn Western oil companies and governments to the country. After years as a relative “backwater”, Azerbaijan now finds itself at the heart of a new "Great Game" in Central Asia.

5 Religions: Muslim 93.4%, Russian Orthodox 2.5%, Armenian Orthodox 2.3%, other 1.8% (1995 est.) Note: Religious affiliation is still nominal in Azerbaijan; actual numbers of practicing adherents are much lower than indicated by the percentages above.

CUSTOMS It's not always easy to penetrate the layers and layers of beliefs and customs that have been carried down through generations for centuries, or, in the case of Azerbaijan, perhaps millennia. It's even more complicated when you're dealing with a foreign language. But there are so many fascinating traditions and practices for a foreigner to discover. Here are a few of them.

• One unwritten rule is that you can borrow nearly anything you like from your neighbor's kitchen, but you MUST replace it. The replacement does not necessarily have to be the same commodity and it does not have to be right away. Returning a cup of sugar back to the neighbor is not acceptable, and returning a plate or bowl empty is considered rude. Solution? Fill the plate with cake or fruits.

• Gift giving is a way of life in Azerbaijan. There are many traditions associated with it. For example, it isn't polite to go to an Azeri home for dinner or to a celebration empty-handed. You should bring a token gift for your host family or the honoree. If you choose flowers, make sure to give an odd number, such as five, seven, eleven, thirteen, etc. Forget the dozen, as an even number is associated with death and mourning.

• There's another tradition about gift giving that's quite different from what we are accustomed to in the US: When you offer a gift, most likely the recipient will not open it in your presence. The same goes for birthday parties, even for kids.

• It's polite to refuse a gift (or food, tea, etc.) twice and only accept it when it is offered a third time.

• At formal events don't eat during speeches.

• When sharing a meal in a family setting, don't be surprised if talk is kept to a minimum during the meal itself. When the tea arrives, conversation develops more naturally.

• Do not serve yourself; wait to be served. • Azeris have many traditions that relate to water, which is a symbolic representation of clarity and purity. For example, they toss a ladle of water after people. It's a common practice when someone is starting off on an important trip. The water is believed to symbolically cleanse the way and make the journey smooth. The gesture is often accompanied with good wishes, "May God help you!" or "Good Way!" or "May your way be as clear as water!"

• It's polite to stand when an older person enters the room. Don't sit with an ankle on one knee or show the soles of your shoes. These are in contact with the dirt of the earth and are considered repulsive. Shoes should be removed when visiting a private residence.

• The “thumbs up” gesture is considered obscene.

6

• Women may find some degree of patronizing towards them, as over 70 years of Soviet culture haven't changed some aspects of the Islamic culture.

• Azeris smoke continuously and everywhere. Non-smoking areas are a new concept.

• Azeris tend to be very polite, but may appear to western Europeans as vague and noncommittal about specifics in business transactions. In Azerbaijan a straight 'no' is not often said, so when somebody tells you 'yes' do not assume it is a definitive 'yes'.

• Unlike in some deeply Muslim countries, in Azerbaijan, business meetings are not interrupted for the Islamic call for prayer.

Famous natives

Azerbaijanis have their share of brilliant, talented individuals. Here are a few who excel in art, music and science.

Nizami Ganjavi is a dominant figure Azeri literature. The peak of his creative activity, "Khamsa", is included in the treasure house of world literature. Among his note-worthy works are his poem "The Treasure house of Mysteries." Written in 1173, it contains twenty chapters and "talks," with parables woven into the fabric of the narrative. Also important are his historic-philosophical poem "Iskandar-Nama" (Alexander the Great), his lyric poems that glorify the purifying and ennobling love of "Khosrow and Shirin" (1181), "" (1197), and "" (1188).

Samad Vurgun: (1906-1956) Born in the village of Salahli he studied at Baku Pedagogical University and . Poet, playwriter, academician, Deputy of the USSR Supreme Soviet, member of Azerbaijan's Parliament, Vice-President of Azerbaijan's Academy of Sciences, Member of the Soviet Peace Committee, President of the Writer's Union in Baku, and recipient of both the Stalin and Lenin Prizes, twice each. He was loved by the regime and invited to read his poems in the presence of Stalin and to offer a toast in the presence of Winston Churchill. Vurgun's house in Baku has become a museum.

Fikrat Amirov: - No doubt the music of Fikrat Amirov has been heard outside of Azerbaijan more than any other Azerbaijani . Amirov is truly one of the greatest that Azerbaijan has ever produced. Michelle Kwan, championship ice skater, used Amirov’s symphonic piece, “Gulustan Bayati-Shiraz.

Kara Karayev: (1918-1982) The musical legacy of Gara Garayev is immense. He composed over one hundred pieces, including ballets, , symphonic and chamber pieces, piano solos, , songs and marches. His imprint on Azerbaijan's music is profound. He is remembered as one of the most outstanding of Azerbaijan's 20th century composers.

7 Bul-Bul: (1897-1971). Born in Shusha, in the Nagorno Karabakh region, Bul-Bul (meaning “nightingale”) is emblematic of Azerbaijan as an artist who masterfully synthesized eastern and western aesthetics. He began his career as a "khanade" folk singer and in 1921 entered the Azerbaijan State conservatoire to get a classical musical education. He later completed his studies in Milan. He was a singer, an actor, a teacher, a musical researcher and innovator, attracting the highest honors conferred by the government of his time. In Baku you can visit the Bul-bul Museum.

Mstislav Rostropovich: (1927- ) Rostropovich is the most esteemed cellist of his generation. He was born in Baku as the Soviet Union was becoming consolidated. Despite winning the Lenin Prize, (a Soviet state award) in 1963, he sheltered the Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; in 1974 Rostropovich and his wife left the USSR, and in 1978 their citizenship was revoked. He emigrated to the and became conductor of the National Orchestra in Washington, D.C., in 1977. He was invited to perform with his orchestra in the USSR in 1990. Both his and his wife's Soviet citizenship have since been restored. Garry Kimovich Kasparov (1963- ) is a chess player and world chess champion who competes for Russia. At the age of 22 he became the youngest world chess champion in history. In 1996 Kasparov competed against an IBM computer named Deep Blue. Deep Blue won the first game of the match to become the first computer to defeat a world champion under regulation time controls. Kasparov subsequently defeated Deep Blue by a score of 4 games to 2 to win the match. Lev Davidovich Landau: (1908-1968), Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, Landau is noted chiefly for his pioneer work in low-temperature physics (cryogenics). He was born in Baku, and educated at the universities of Baku and Leningrad. In 1937 Landau became professor of theoretical physics at the S. I. Vavilov Institute of Physical Problems in Moscow. His development of the mathematical theories that explain how superfluid helium behaves at temperatures near absolute zero earned him the 1962 Nobel Prize in physics. The list is endless. If you would like to know more about the talented, gifted people that this fascinating country has given to the world, visit the library to read more about the art and history of Azerbaijan.

8 The Language

The Azeri language belongs to the Altaic family of languages. Other members of this group include Uzbek and Kazakh, but the closest linguistic “neighbor” is Turkish. Speakers of Turkish and Azeri are able to understand each other with little difficulty. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Azeri was written in an Arabic script, and this is still the practice south of the border, in Iran. There were various attempts to convert the language to Roman and then modified Cyrillic alphabet. With independence, a new, Turkish-based Roman script has been successfully introduced.

The structure of the Azeri language is quite simple. Azeri word order typically places the verb at the end of the sentence. Azeri is almost free of grammatical exceptions. Azeri is an “agglutinative” language, meaning that information is added at the end of the word in distinct segments, e.g.

dad - taste dad-li - tasty, delicious dad-siz - tasteless

Alphabet and Pronunciation table

Azeri English Azeri English Alphabet Sound Alphabet Sound

А а Army Q q Good B b Bank L l Lip C c “J” as in Japan М м Milk Ç ç “ch” as in child N n Neck D d Dam O o October E e end Ö ö “ur” as in curtain Ə ə “a” as in Fat Cat P p Pen F f Fate R r Rug G g Give S s Sun Ğ ğ No English equivalent, Ş ş “sh” as in Shape “gh” H h Harp Т т Time X x “ch” as in “Loch” U u “u” as in Put

9 I ı “i” as in Timor Ü ü “u” as in Mute İ i “it” V v Victory J j “j” as in Déjà vu Y y Year К К Kit Z z Zoo

10