Mountain Jews

Pictures: Jewish Cemetery, mosque, man in front of his house (the beige house)

Quba, Azerbaijan- Oct. 15, 2022 We said good-bye to Baku, a park-filled beauty of a city, and turned north along the Caspian coast toward Quba. It is not well known that the Nobel family of Nobel Prize fame earned the money that funds the award by investments in the oil industry here. Since its inception there has not been a prize for a mathematician. Rumor has it that a love interest of Alfred Nobel cheated on him with a mathematician. Our three hour drive went from the bleak landscape surrounding Baku, to apple orchards, to dense forests. We reconfigured our seating in the van so we had more leg room. It made the trip bearable. Gloomy clouds followed us, but David guaranteed it would not rain while we were outside. He was right. Quba is the home of the “mountain” Jews who immigrated to the Caucasus from Persia in the 5th century. Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews arrived in the 17th century. They speak Russian and Farsi and use Hebrew for prayer. There were three synagogues in the community but one is now used as the school. Most are employed in the jewelry business and seem to live well. Viewed from an overlook, it was easy to understand why their community is called the Red Town. Roofs are red tile and red brick is the preferred building material. Although many traditions are similar to ours, there are differences. Mezuzahs are affixed on doorposts in a vertical rather than slanted position. A well-maintained cemetery contained above ground vaults for each person rather than in-ground burial. Headstones featured images of the deceased etched in granite and inscriptions were in Russian Cyrillic writing and Hebrew. Latif introduced us to an elderly man with whom he clearly had a long standing relationship. The man has six children and twenty grandchildren. When he pointed to his enormous house I figured they lived with him. Nope, just his wife and him. The rest is for visitors. We couldn’t go into the synagogue because the person with the key wasn’t answering his phone. We peered in and proceeded to walk by the school, future museum, and Mikva. Jerri knew a lot about Judaism. She said she lives by Jewish principles, but is not formally Jewish. Vicki and Doug are unaffiliated Unitarians. Of course they are. There was no skipping lunch today. We ate at a rustic resort in the forest and enjoyed luscious tandoor made bread and hot soup. Every meal begins with an array of salads and ends with tea and desert. We left there happy and ready for more touring. A visit to a mosque was next and we were ready to enter having brought scarves and socks. It was a humble building with exquisite wall to wall rugs. They whet our appetite for our stop at the carpet factory where only three looms were in use. In season there are at least twenty. It is women’s work and a labor of love, meticulous detail, and stamina. Of course there was a showroom where Vicki and Jerri tried to buy rugs. Unfortunately for all, the credit card machine would only take our guide’s local card and he wasn’t willing to spring for their purchases :( :( Our hotel, The Quba Palace, was our destination for the night. It exceeded all expectations. It’s a 5-star luxury resort on rolling acres of golf courses and woods. We have remote controlled window shades in the room and enough mirrors on the walls to satisfy any narcicist. Dinner was a 5 minute ride away for another lovely meal. The pre-main dish salad offerings get better and more varied. We’ve enjoyed pickled everything, greens (including raw dill, which is actually mild and tasty) tomatoes in pomegranate sauce sprinkled with ground walnuts, mushrooms in cream, and of course, cheeses and breads, The meat dinner was four hamburgers (could be considered kofta) with roasted vegetables and sublimely seasoned fries, Dessert was my dream. There was creamy rich vanilla ice cream and a chocolate volcano cake, which we dubbed our own mud volcano. It was over too soon, but we were ready for bed. Tomorrow we have an early start for Khinalug, a remote village higher up in the Caucasus. Toby