Lezgi Village Visit

So this weekend was spent visiting a family in a small mountainous village inhabited by mostly Lezgi people. The Lezgi people are originally from Dagstan and speak their own langauge, and today there are over 170,00 Lezgi people living in Azerbaijan. We took a mini-bus to a nearby town, and after having some tea and sweets at a friends house, he arranged a ride for us up to his parents house about an hour away. The drive up was through a rain shower, the first during my time here. However, after being in the village for around an hour, the rain lifted to reveal beautiful and peaceful mountain scenery, reminding me of a crisp Colorado summer. With the ground still moist from the rain, we talked to a local home that produces hand-made carpets, where we were able to see the impressive process in which every step is completed by hand. The wife of the family we were staying with makes these carpets, and we were told it would take a team of two women, working full days six days a week, around two months to complete a two meter by four meter carpet, which would sell for 400-500 manat (480-600 USD). That may seem somewhat expensive for a carpet, but the quality and time put it, it seems like little compensation for two months work of labor. I have attached a short video of the ladies working on a carpet at the bottom of this post.

We then spent the afternoon with the man whose house we stayed at, and he took us on a walk around the village and in the surrounding countryside, proudly showing us his cows and a garden he had organizing and planted himself. Then suddenly seeing some fodder high up in a tree that would be good for the animal back at his house, he jumped up into a tree, climbed to the top, and starting ripping branches down. Now I think that was the first time I have ever seen a 63 year old man just jump up into a 30 ft. tall tree and act like George of the Jungle, but he did it without giving it a second thought. Overall man of the people seemed to be quite healthy, due to a diet of locally grown produce, little meat, fresh mountain air and water, and daily outdoor work. This was evidenced by a 92 year old man we met on the road, who was still sharp as a tack and wanting to share his stories about his travels during his time in the army.

We ate dinner and spent the night at the families house, and as guests we were very graciously treated, always being severed tea and some sweets, and that night were given the prime sleeping places. After breakfast the next morning, we headed off in a shared taxi back to the main town, where we were to jump in a mini-bus back to Baku. That was an interesting point of cultural learning, as it took about ten minutes for everyone to decide where everyone would sit. I probably got in and out of that mini-bus three or four times, but finally settled in for the ride to Baku. Riding on the buses here is in general a bit odd, as even in the big city buses people (esp. the elderly women) never seem quite content with where they are standing or sitting, so it is a constant game of chess meets bumper cars to jockey for position. I still have figured what the prize is, but I have been places with buses much more crowded but people don't seem quite so keen on moving around as they do here.