Xinaliq – village of the snowmen, mountainous paradise

(pics of the village and our hosts will follow)

When talking about their village, the habitants of Xinaliq refer to it as mountainous paradise, and to themselves as snowmen. They say both with a big grin on their faces. These descriptions are spot on. With the help of other sources, I will try to do it justice.

Mark Elliot describes the village as following; ‘On a typical overcast day, Xinaliq rises like a pre-historic stone boat floating on a heavy sea of clouds… the village itself is a steeply-stacked pile of 300 higgledy piggledy, rocky-grey homes.’ The roof of one house often forms the garden of another. Mark has probably never set foot in Xinaliq in the winter, when perhaps (as I have not seen it any other time) it is of even greater beauty. Not mere pre-historic stone houses floating in the clouds, but rather floating in the snow, surrounded by peaks every direction you look.

Xinaliq is a habitat of wonders- perhaps less so today than several years ago. It is perhaps also the example of a changing society. As –apparently– one of the oldest mountain villages, this curious place is situated on near the top of the mountain Tufan daģ (~2500 m), a triangled peak, always covered with snow. Having been very hard to reach in the past, it was considered a place of mystery for many years. Too high (or simply located wrongly) for trees or much vegetation, the villagers used to hunt and herd, making clothes and carpets of the fabric they gathered. Before, some attempts were made to cultivate the grassy terraces on steep slopes, but today the terraces are left to the grass. Hunting and herding is still done, but no longer is all that is needed produced by the people themselves.

More than one road now connects Xinaliq to the world, changing life as it once was. Before, the main road was not open in the winter time. A river had to be forked many times: frequently the rapids were too strong to do so. Snow also made the terrain hard to cross. During these times, only a handful of villagers used to remain in Xinaliq, mostly men. Rations would be stored up, snow would come (and shuffled off the roof tops), hares and wolves would join village life. Yet now there is another road. While prone to natural destruction, it makes winter travel to and from the village a lot easier. Even during these months, villagers occasionally travel down to Quba and buy and sell products there. Yet being quite an expensive journey, buying produce for ten months is still common.

Xinaliqi people are descendents of Albans named Ketsh, giving them a different appearance than the stereotype Azerbaijanis. Many of them have light brown, blue or green eyes. They speak their own language, which they call Xinaliqi, but the proper name is Ketsh Mitz. This is considered a very rare language, consisting of 77 letters of which 59 are consonants, making the language very guttural and wheezing (according to Yunus Desheriyev and Marek Lech). In school the children start learning Azerbaijani, but the pre-schooled children do not know this yet. All the adults speak Azerbaijani too, while the men also speak Russian.

More women and children are starting to stay during the cold months, though many people still go down to Quba. During these times, those that remain behind occupy themselves with shoveling snow of the flat roofs, so that these don’t collapse inwards. And while clearing the roof, they might as well clear the path to between the house and outside toilet. The other main occupation, watching satellite tv and for the women, preparing food.

While the road is a blessing in several ways, it is also a curse to the old way of life. Being a place of beauty, the road has make Xinaliq more accessible to tourists. (Xinaliq in fact is hardly known to Azerbaijanis, but immensely almost every foreigner has heard of it.) No hotel has been built as yet, but various families are starting to earn their living as UAZ jeep/Niva taxi (needed to fork the river when the road has washed away), from home stays or during the summer months as guides and horse rental for hikers. And while it is really good for the people to have yet another way of making a living, it damages the society, some people’s honesty and clashes with the famed Azerbaijani hospitality. It is this natural generosity that gets in conflict. Apparently like in some areas of Georgia, a real tension is emerging between it, clashing with income generation of tourism. As such, we heard many different rates to go up to Xinaliq and descend again. Perhaps it also depends if you pick up a ride that is going in your direction regardless of you being there, but we were quoted prices differing from 3 manats per person to 10 a head or 150 for the car (and driver). Also, I do not think a set amount has been established to host people, what is included in this rate, and the terms of conduct. Also, not all tourists are the same… at the same time it might be key to the survival of the village. Slowly families are moving out. Of the 300-500 families, around 150- 200 still live there, with fewer than 100 families staying for the winter. The youngsters are going to Quba to study and might stay depending on job/marriage.

A home stay in Xinaliq is amazing. At least we were really lucky and got to stay with an fantastic, friendly family. Three of the six had a UAZ-lift up to Xinaliq, and were dropped off at the driver’s brother’s place. Families tend to be quite big- I guess you have to keep yourself busy and warm in some way. Our host family consisted of the father and mother, 6 daughters and 1 son (poor one), and 2 granddaughters. Their father had gotten ill one day, and just died, so now the mother and those two have moved back in.
The house consists of three rooms and a closed balcony; respectively the kitchen, living room and sleeping room. There is a little hut with a hole in the floor outside functioning as toilet, a porch, and a hallway where you take off your shoes. The family owns cows for milk and some sheep, probably for mutton to sell in Quba and for wool to make carpets with. Some of the doors in the house were said to be over 400 years old. The ceiling was made of wood, covered with the stone roof (flat). All the rooms are lined with hand-made carpets, both on the floor and hanging from the walls for isolation. In the living room there was a small heating unit, running on dung and trash; a table and some chairs; a sofa; another low table with pillows around it to sit on and eat at; and a tv. In the kitchen there was a small oven used to bake bread, and big bags of supplies. Of the six of us, the girls slept in the 3rd room, a dressing/sleeping room, on thick mattresses with thick duvets (sheep wool I presume). The boys slept with the men in the closed balcony room, tucked under 3 blankets, still shivering away. The women and children slept in the main room and the kitchen. It was quite obvious that our stay disrupted their normal ways, though I think the children especially enjoyed our company and our host too. We gave them the food we took and some presents (jam and sweets), and put some money on top for sleeping at their place. Also, of the million and one photo’s they made us take of the family, we are mailing them the best copies. Being really tired we went to bed early and got up when it got light, to explore the village and climb one of the hill tops, all before breakfast and saying goodbyes to hike back down to ‘civilization’.