Azerbaijan – Nakhchivan December 5-6, 2019
GETTING IN
Visa. My initial e-visa to Azerbaijan was a single entry and terminated with that use. When I wanted to enter Nakhchivan, I had to get a second visa on an urgent basis – US$20 + 30 for the urgent. The e-visa requires accommodation. I went on booking.com, found a hotel and used its address without actually making a booking. The booking was not checked as part of the visa approval. The visa also asks if you have ever been to Nagorno Karabakh (a disputed area with Armenia). Visiting there, then coming to Azerbaijan, may get you arrested. I had asked to not have the Nagorno Karabakh permit or stamps in my passport when I visited.
This whole process was irritating in that I did not plan this better – Nakhchivan is a place with nothing much to see other than it is another Nomad Mania region. With a 3-hour delivery time, I sat in no-man’s land between Turkey and Nakhchivan waiting. It took exactly 3 hours, but I played a lot of bridge and worked on posts.
My vehicle insurance for Azerbaijan was still good, but I had to pay another US$15 road tax.
They agonized over my vehicle ownership status. The vehicle is registered to My California Rental Services (you need to have an address in Europe) but I have a letter from My California stating that I own the vehicle. Azerbaijan does not check for outstanding tickets, as I’m sure I have several speeding tickets from my first trip in the country.
I then tried to find an area of clean pavement to spend the night close to the border, but couldn’t, drove further and couldn’t access my Turkey phone and internet.
The next morning I drove into Nakhchevan (Naxçivan) on a good 4-lane highway. The landscape is a wide flat plain with high, snow-capped mountains to the west border with Iran.
NAKHCHEVAN
Juma Mosque. Dated to the 18th century, it is a single-story brick building with yellow decorative brick and blue tile decoration. It has a single brick minaret with a wrought iron balcony and gold dome. The inside was lovely and warm. The dome, arches, and sidewall extensions were all the same red brick as the outside. A blue tile band with flowers circled the bottom of the dome and blue tile Koran script framed the mihrab. 4 lovely stained glass windows were in the dome and the bottom. Framed in geometric wood, the great colours can only be appreciated from the inside.
The Mausoleum of Nakhichevan (Momine Khatun Mausoleum). A tentative WHS (30/09/1998), this outstanding architectural monument was built in 1186, by the famous Nakhchivan architect Ajami Abubakir oglu. The mausoleum was built by the order of Shamsaddin Eldaniz, the founder of the Azerbaijan Atabay state, over the grave of his wife Momina Khatun. The words are written on the monument, “We’re leaving, but dreams remain. We are dying, but the foundation remains.” The mausoleum was restored in 2003.
Sitting in a large park to the SW of the mosque, this 35m high octagonal building has intricate small brick/blue tile geometric decoration on all surfaces. Inset stalactites frame the top of the insets. On one side is an elevated platform with many ram, fish and other gravestones.
Ashabi-Kahf Caves. A 20km drive SE of the center of Nakhchivan, this is at the base of the mountain. The north face is a cliff and the south is eroded into many clefts where the caves are. Walk up 118 limestone steps lined with 22 hexagonal, blue-roofed pagodas with tables and benches. To the right are two small retaining walls that dam water from the cleft above. Then 310 steps on stone stairs to narrow metal and stone stairs that climb 115 steps to a small pour-off and a trickle of water with nothing to see. Return down the metal stairs, then 6 steps to an area with a brick courtyard and two domed brick buildings, one locked and the other with a polished stone on a stand. Then 6 steps to a small brick courtyard with a small soot-blackened “hole” in the rock above. Another larger hole requiring rock climbing skills is up to the right. Continue up 91 steps to the main shallow cave with a large entrance.
I talked to a fellow at the bottom who told me the legend. In pre-Islamic times, 7 men escaping robbers slept for 300 years in these caves. It is a religious place recorded in the Koran.
The only real value is to see the landscape, get some exercise and practice counting. The caves are all unremarkable.
I got into a long discussion with this fellow about Nagorno. He claims that everything was Azeri, that the Armenians never arrived there until 1918 and that Azerbaijan gave the area around Yerevan to Armenia. Interesting how everyone writes their own history books.
Well south of the city is the imposing jagged dome of “Gamigaya” (rock-ship), the widely used name of Gapijig Mountain (3,906 m), the highest summit of the Lesser Caucasus. It is considered one of the most sacred pantheons of the ancient world. There are many legends linking the mountain with the ark of the Prophet Nuh (Noah), probably because the top of Gapijig resembles a huge ship. More than 1,000 rock paintings and petroglyphs made by the first generations of people who lived here have been well preserved on Gamigaya, them being cultural traces of the Mesolithic to Bronze periods.
Duzdagh Salt Mountain Cave. Also a NM “Sight”, they are about 7kms NE of Nakhchevan. When you don’t know what something is, I found this a weird place. Enter a building and walk down a wood-lined low-roofed tunnel for 71 paces, then enter the crystal salt tunnel – about 7 feet high and 5m across and 181 paces long. There is a larger side room. The tunnel inclines up and the ceiling is a little higher for about 170 paces. The tunnels have several wood-screened “side tunnels” coming off it. Finally, reach wood lattice doors that is as far as one can go. I peered through and the tunnel continued. Zero English so when there I never did understand much. The tunnels are rock salt and the other layers of rock are easy to distinguish. I assumed it was a rock salt mine. Free
From the internet: this is a former salt mine whose underground tunnels have been converted into a leading salt therapy centre serviced by physicians and physiotherapists. The mountain is thought to contain some 130 million tons of pure natural salt, prized for its ability to cure allergies, asthma and pulmonary disorders. For the full experience, soak up the salt and silence while overnighting in one of the centre’s underground caverns.
The overlying hills are bentonite, a soft clay-like dirt.
