On the way to Ilisu, Azerbaijan. Part 1.
Do you take road trips to certain places at certain times of the year?
I do. It adds the excitement of an upcoming trip to the calm of a familiar journey. You have your most and least favourite parts on the way to your destination, and you have your favourite stops where you can take a tea break or pause to take a pic.
Leaving Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, for a several-week stay in a village in the mountain valleys of the northern tip of the country has become a family tradition in the summer. I owe my deep emotional attachment to the picturesque village of Ilisu to the maternal side of my family; my grandmother’s legacy, whose life story I compare in part to those of the British suffragettes, deserves a separate telling.
The truth is, I’ve never enjoyed the start of the journey, leaving the suburbs of Baku and heading for a sandy and dull-looking landscape that evokes nothing but the ennui of the desert.
First, you pass the rather disheartening Sulutapa (Sulutəpə) — an area known best for its settlements of Azerbaijani refugees from the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. This war resulted in a million Azerbaijanis being evicted from their homes in the Karabakh, the seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan, and from mainland Armenia.
Next, you pass through Jangi (Cəngi)- a town en route to the Gobustan district. Now, Gobustan is probably the first historic site, popular with Azerbaijani tourists who want to enjoy its colossal 537 hectares of petroglyphs, rock art, including some of the oldest rock engravings dating back to Palaeolithic times; the remains of inhabited settlements; caves and burial sites. In brief, it is a total immersion in human history. I wonder if Noral Yuval ever visited this site for inspiration.
As we never stray from our usual route, I usually just stare through the car window in boredom. I am often challenged by fellow companions jokingly pointing out my inability to spot the beauty in the beast and broaden the horizons of my imagination. Unbothered, I plunge instead into a daydream, eagerly awaiting the next part of the journey, a greener and hillier area often described by Azerbaijanis as a new geographical zone’, as it condenses a variety of climates into a relatively small country.
Remarkable, though, was the year 2015, when I embarked on the same road trip at the same time of year. I was about to take a nap for the first hour to skip my least favourite part, but all of a sudden I found myself jumping out of the car with my camera. The tractor could challenge any art installation in the Tate Modern in London. The sky was bursting with intense colour; the clouds were as low as in the paintings by Flemish artists; the once dull surface had become golden sand that spilled out to make a semi-desert reminiscent of Arabia. At last, I had fallen in love with the beast I’d ignored for so many years. We had finally reached peace, and from that day on, even if he doesn’t return my look of enchantment, I no longer take a nap.
Stay tuned for Part 2: On the Way to Ilisu, Azerbaijan. To be continued…
