Azerbaijan's subtropical south — tea plantations on the Caspian shore, Talysh mountain villages, and levengi fish stuffed with pomegranate and walnut
Lankaran is the largest city of Azerbaijan's Talysh region — a subtropical coastal strip between the Talysh Mountains and the Caspian Sea that receives more rainfall than anywhere else in the country, producing lush forests, tea plantations, and a microclimate warm enough for citrus and pomegranate orchards. The city is the cultural centre of the Talysh people — a distinct ethnic group with their own language (related to Persian) who have lived in the southern Caucasus for millennia. Lankaran's food culture is the most distinctive in Azerbaijan: levengi (fish or chicken stuffed with a paste o…
The Lankaran Khanate was an independent Persian-vassal state from 1747 to 1828, one of several khanates that emerged as Safavid Persian power declined. Russia conquered it in 1828 under the Treaty of Turkmenchay, the same treaty that ended the Russo-Persian War and divided the Caucasus between Russian and Persian spheres. The region is the ancestral homeland of the Talysh people, who maintain a distinct identity despite Azerbaijani administrative integration. Lankaran served as a brief capital of the short-lived Soviet Republic of Gilan (1920–21), when communist forces from Iranian Azerbaijan…