Yukari Karavansarai Hotel
Travel Blogs from Sheki
Sheki
After 2 weeks in Georgia finally arrived in Azerbaijan. The boarder crossing was painless then after a couple of hours in the truck arrived in Sheki. Firstly visited the Palace of Shaki Khans with it's beautifully detailed interior paintings - unfortunately no photos allowed inside.
Then wandered around the town looking for a reastaurant …
Dosvedanya, Azerbaijan!
After just a few days, I know that Azerbaijan is a land of many contrasts. It has a long and varied history, has been part of the Persian empire and the Soviet Union with remnants of both still evident as well as many other invaders in between. The Azeri language is a Turkic language but Russian is widely understood.
The Russians and Soviets have left their mark on this tiny Caucasus country. They invaded and stole or destroyed ...
An Azerbaijani Family
The Azeri family that hosted us in Sheki for two days had a tremendous interest in Hindi films. While the spoken dialogues had been dubbed in Russian, the songs were not (thankfully!). However, as any connoisseur of Hindi films knows, it is the songs that make these films popular. How big an impact these songs had on people in a foreign land can be assessed based on this exchange we had with them. The father (Mr. I) spoke English ...
Vikings Originally Came From Azerbaijan?
We left Lahic on a rainy morning and caught the first marshrutka out from the village back to Ismayilli on the main Baku-Balakan highway. It filled up quickly with good natured regulars who greeted each other in a familiar manner and settled down for the ride into town. Along the way a large group of school children dressed in neat uniforms joined in and actually looked happy to be going to school! Before long a feisty old woman seated half way down ...
On the Silk Road
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On arriving in our first Azeri town it seemed that our fears were unfounded with the dress code much more liberal for women than expected. Helen may have been fine in lycra but on looking around we realised that all the men, without exception, were wearing trousers, this explained why I was getting stared at and was the cause of passers by s******ing. Over the next few days I got used to the staring and we found the Azeri people friendly and ...