The copper city of the Caucasus — a medieval mountain village where 700 years of coppersmithing tradition survives, 2,200 metres above sea level
Lahıj (Lahic) is a mountain village in the Ismailli district of northern Azerbaijan — at 1,500m in the foothills of the Greater Caucasus, 200km north of Baku, accessible via a winding road through the Girdimanchai River canyon. The village is the finest surviving example of the Caucasian coppersmithing tradition: 700 years of continuous craft production using the same techniques, tools (hammer, punching wheel, chasing irons), and workshop layouts. The village's main street and its tributaries are lined with workshops where copper (mis, from the word for the metal itself) is beaten into vessel…
Lahıj was settled by Persian craftsmen (from Lahijan in the Iranian Gilan province) who brought their metalworking skills to the Caucasus in the late medieval period — the name Lahıj derives from Lahijan, the Persian origin city. The community maintained a distinct identity (speaking a Persian dialect called Lahıj Persian or Əcəmcə rather than Azerbaijani Turkic) for centuries; today most Lahıjis are bilingual in Azerbaijani and Lahıj Persian. The coppersmithing tradition survived the Soviet period partly because the collective craft workshop system maintained production (though state-owned r…