Els Slots

3.00 The Netherlands - 04-May-25 -

Khinalig isn’t visited much by our community – it is too remote to feature on a first itinerary of Azerbaijan. A direct drive from Baku takes 4 hours; so it should be in our Remote Cultural WHS connection. I got there via a day tour from Baku by the Azerbaijan Travel Company (booked via the cheaper GetYourGuide). They run daily group tours with an English-speaking guide, which are surprisingly popular. It included some other short stops as well (Candycane Mountain and the Red Village (the town of the Mountain Jews, where the synagogue now has been closed and is guarded by Azeri soldiers because of Gaza tensions)), but when you go on your own I’d recommend doing Khinalig only as it is by far the most interesting part.

The name of the village and its people isn’t pronounced “Khee-nah-leek” as I had always thought, it is something like “Geh-nuh-leg” (the g as in the guttural Arabic/Dutch g). Despite the town of Khinalig being the obvious focus of the WHS, the core zone is much larger as it also includes both their winter and summer pastures, plus the narrow way between them which is over 200km! I tried to follow on the map whether the access road is part of that zone, but it isn’t: it meanders southeastward through an area with only minor roads. We still saw plenty of sheep and cows being moved around though.

Although there is a paved road nowadays all the way to the village, parts had washed away recently so we still had to rely on 4x4’s getting there. Taxi drivers with 4x4 Lada’s have a good business going on in the city of Quba to provide them. The road seemed doable with any car with a strong engine (our minibus probably was too heavy), but it was quite fun actually to be driven around in an old Lada. It’s still a 50km drive from Quba to get to Khinalig. Most is steeply uphill and there was still plenty of snow in early May, sometimes also covering half of the road. It’s a pretty landscape dominated by U-shaped valleys and mountain meadows.

Khinalig village lies at the top of a hill. The road in the town itself is unpaved and very steep, so you might need to park at the foot of the hill and walk up. A few houses have opened up as guesthouses and a boy was following us around selling knitwear. We had lunch in one of the traditional houses where they had all kinds of local memorabilia hanging on the walls. They showed us a “meteorite”, a very heavy, rounded stone. According to our guide it had fallen from the sky in the 19th century and destroyed some houses, but I have found no evidence to corroborate that. These stones however do feature in the nomination file: they “are considered sacred (“coming directly from heaven”), and they are found in every mosque and shrine in Khinalig. The people pick up the rounded stones that they find in nature and bring them with themselves when they come to the shrines”.

The buildings are mostly made out of local river stones, stacked together with some mud and straw. The roofs are all flat and are accessed via a ladder attached to the exterior – they serve as courtyards for the neighbouring houses. A typical house also has a “glassed gallery” – a wooden structure, now often brightly painted, that has a covered staircase and serves as a kitchen and storage area. Cow manure is left to dry everywhere in town and is used for heating. 

Before you go and visit, I can recommend reading the nomination file first, as it is very well done (if you ignore some funny misspellings). It explains the cultural landscape of Khinalig better than what you find with your own eyes or from a tour guide. To boost tourism a bit more, I think it would also be beneficial if hikes could be organized to visit some of the shrines, cemeteries, etc. along the migration route.

Read more from Els Slots here.

Szucs Tamas

1.50 Hungary - 01-Oct-23 -

I visited Khinalig (Xinaliq, Khynalyg, Hinalug etc, the spelling is even more incoherent than in other cases in Azerbaijan) in April 2022, some months before it reappeared on the list as a highly potential contestant for WHC 2023/24. Though it's not too difficult to visit now, I'm not surprised that I became the first reviewer. Tourists in Azerbaijan seldom leave Baku and the closest surroundings - the Apsheron peninsula and Gobustan. Frankly saying  - for good. The attractions the country can offer are generally low key, and the road network has serious deficiencies - all roads are radial, so if you want to drive from one region to another you most probably have to go through Baku, which makes short journeys incredibly long, and country roads sometimes are of terrible quality. 

Khinaliq in this sense had a bad reputation, the road through the ravine to the mountains was horrible some years ago. However it has been improved, tarred so now it's doable with a saloon car - we drove a Hyundae minivan, and had no difficulties getting there and away.  The way through the ravine is undoubtedly scenic, we stopped several times to catch the best lights. So are the mountains and valleys surrounding the village. We saw flocks of sheep and shepherds, whether they were actually transhuming that time, I don't know. Transhumance is one of the most elusive types of World Heritage anyway. There is not much built heritage to see, and even it is scattered, and usually in places that are difficult to approach or just out of the reach of the average traveller.

The original nomination did not concentrate on this aspect - at least as its name suggests - but on dry stone architecture.as it was  referred to the 'medieval village of Khinalig'. The village does indeed consist of stone houses built in the traditional style, but  - I assume - only the settlement plan or the foundations of the houses can be medieval in the reality. Most of the buildings are either visibly modern or at least partly modern - you can see metallic roofs, scettered building material,  piles of new bricks and plastic foils everywhere. The image of the village reflects rather 21st century poverty than some kind of idealistic historical atmosphere. There's a small local museum where you can go inside a house, but otherwise what you can do - apart from trekking up the mountain, of course - is stroll through the streets dusty in dry weather, muddy after rains. There is a small shop and, I suppose, if you ask around, you can stay in one of the houses and get dinner. But it's really only worth staying for more than an hour if you intend to trek through the mountains, which can be of course a great experience for those who are into that sort of thing - I'm certainly not one of them.

The village is a contestant for the title of 'Europe's highest village', which of course would require us to accept the premise that Azerbaijan is part of Europe, which no one outside Azerbaijan takes seriously. However, it must be admitted that the other contenders - Ushguli or Shatili in Georgia - are far more spectacular than Khinalig. I suspect - although I have no positive knowledge of this - that the focus of the nomination was also changed because it became clear to the Azeris that architecture alone would be a weak argument for Khinalig in the necessary comparative analysis with Upper Svaneti. Transhumance, which is difficult to grasp but quite popular among the State Parties, could have come then into the picture. It is a telling sign that the documentation, which is beautifully designed and includes photographs of artistic merit,  contains some pictures of individual houses, but hardly any pictures of the village itself. The only building with three pictures is the Ateshgah, the fire worshippers shrine, which is about 5 km away from the village, up in the mountains, and can only be reached on foot, and therefore reachable only for those who are willing to trek. The bulk of the material focuses on intangible heritage and the way of life - not necessarily a mistake for a cultural landscape, but a clear sing, that just visiting the place does not give your an incredible experience. As you can only get familiar with any of this if you can get away to the mountain with the shepherds, which is not an option for the average tourist with limited time.

As for the practicaléities: in theory - i think - there are marshrutkas to the village from Quba, but - unless you have countless time, and are ready to spend a night there - some kind of private transport is inevitable. Either you rent a car in Baku (as we did), or convince somebody in Qube/Guba to take you to Khinalig. Quba can be the ideal starting point of the tour - Kihnalig is an easy (half)day trip from there as you can reach the village in cca 1,5 hours. If you are there, Quba itself worth a visit. Hundred years ago - before the foundation of the State of Israel - it was the only town in the world of 100% Jewish population. There is a nice and informative Jewish Museum, and walking tours are also available in the former Jewish Quarter - where you can still visit some synagogues, a mikveh, and see the beautiful 19th century merchant houses. Btw I can see a high potential for a WH nomination there.