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Concept
Sumgait
Summary
Sumgait (ˌsuːmɡɑːˈiːt; Sumqayıt, sumɡɑˈjɯt) is a city in Azerbaijan, located near the Caspian Sea, on the Absheron Peninsula, about away from the capital Baku. The city has a population of around 345,300, making it the second largest city in Azerbaijan after Baku.
The city has a territory of . It was founded as a suburb of Baku in 1944 and received city status on November 22, 1949, growing into a major industrial center during the Soviet period. The municipality of Sumgait also includes the settlements of Jorat and Haji Zeynalabdin. It is home to Sumqayit State University.
According to local folklore the city is named after the Sumgait River. One folk legend tells the tale of a hero by the name of "Sum", who is chosen by the community to fight a monster that was blocking the Sumgait River. Sum eventually manages to kill the monster, but when the river is released he is swept away by the waters and never seen again. After that, his beloved, Jeyran, inconsolable due to Sum's disappearance, would go to the river and cry "Sum qayıt!" (which means "Sum, come back!" in Azerbaijani). So the river became known as Sumgait, after which the city was named.
According to historians, Medean tribes lived in the area in ancient times. During the construction boom, when the foundation of the executive power building was being excavated, remains of an ancient caravanserai along with personal items and kitchenware was found at the site.
The first reports of settlements at the present site of Sumgait were in 1580, when English traveller H. Barrow mentioned Sumgait in his writings and in 1858, when Alexander Dumas wrote about the area in his memoirs Trip to Caucasus, although nothing substantial was created on the site until the Soviet Union gained control over the area in the 1920s.
Following the politics of glasnost, initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including Nagorno-Karabakh, an autonomous region of the Azerbaijani SSR.
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