Caucasian foothills nut-town — walnut and hazelnut groves, medieval watchtowers, and the untouched Zagatala Nature Reserve above
Zagatala is a district town in the Alazan-Haftaran valley of northwestern Azerbaijan, at the edge of the Greater Caucasus, bordering Georgia to the north and west. The town sits in a landscape of exceptional agricultural richness — the Zagatala-Balakan corridor is one of the most productive hazelnut, walnut, and chestnut-growing areas in the Caucasus, with nut groves extending to the mountain forest edge — and is framed by medieval defensive towers (watchtowers built by the local Dido and Avar communities against lowland incursion) that dot the hillsides. The Zagatala State Nature Reserve, es…
Zagatala was historically the territory of the Jar-Balakan Sultanate, one of several successor micro-states of the Safavid Empire in the Caucasus, which maintained considerable autonomy by playing Persian, Ottoman, and local interests against each other until Russian conquest in 1803. The medieval defensive towers in the surrounding hills are evidence of a long tradition of highland self-defense by the Dido and Avar peoples (Nakh-Daghestanian groups distinct from Turkic Azerbaijanis) who populated the mountain zone above the valley. Russian colonial administration developed Zagatala as a regi…