Baku GovernorateThe Baku Governorate, known before 1859 as the Shemakha Governorate, was a province (guberniya) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire, with its center in the booming metropolis and Caspian Sea port of Baku. Area (1897): 34,400 sq. versts, population (1897): 789,659. The Baku Governorate bordered Persia to the south, the Elizavetpol Governorate (the Tiflis and Erivan governorates before 1868) to the west, the Dagestan Oblast to the north, and the Baku gradonachalstvo to the east on the Absheron Peninsula.
AshvaAshva (अश्व) is the Sanskrit word for a horse, one of the significant animals finding references in the Vedas as well as later Hindu scriptures. The word is cognate to Avestan 𐬀𐬯𐬞𐬀 (), Latin equus, Ancient Greek ἵππος (), Proto-Germanic *ehwaz, obsolete Prussian Lithuanian ašvà (from Proto-Balto-Slavic *éśwāˀ), all from Proto-Indo-European . There are repeated references to the horse the Vedas (c. 1500 - 500 BC). In particular, the Rigveda has many equestrian scenes, often associated with chariots.
YaghnobisThe Yaghnobi people (Yaghnobi: yaγnōbī́t or suγdī́t; яғнобиҳо, yağnobiho/jaƣnoʙiho) are an East Iranian ethnic minority in Tajikistan. They inhabit Tajikistan's Sughd province in the valleys of the Yaghnob, Qul and Varzob rivers. The Yaghnobis are considered to be descendants of the Sogdian-speaking peoples who once inhabited most of Central Asia beyond the Amu Darya River in what was ancient Sogdia. They speak the Yaghnobi language, a living Eastern Iranian language (the other living members being Pashto, Ossetic and the Pamir languages).
Baloch peopleThe Baloch or Baluch (Balòc) are a Western Iranic ethnic group native to the Balochistan region of South and Western Asia encompassing the countries of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. There are also Baloch diaspora communities in neighbouring regions, including in Central Asia, and the Arabian Peninsula. Assimilation of non-Baloch tribes into Baloch tribal system has been a major phenomenon throughout the history of Baloch people, and today a significant Baloch population has diverse origins.
LursThe Lurs (لر) are an Iranian people living in western Iran. The four Luri branches are the Bakhtiari, Mamasani, Kohgiluyeh and Lur proper, who are principally linked by the Luri language. Lorestan Province is named after the Lurs, but the ethnic group also live in the provinces of Fars, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, Khuzestan, Hamadan, Isfahan, Tehran and southern Ilam Province.
Tower of SilenceA dakhma ( دخمه), also known as a Tower of Silence, is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation (that is, the exposure of human corpses to the elements for decomposition), in order to avert contamination of the soil and other natural elements by the dead bodies. Carrion birds, usually vultures and other scavengers, consume the flesh. Skeletal remains are gathered into a central pit where further weathering and continued breakdown occurs.
AshaAsha (ˈʌʃə) or arta (ˈɑrtə; 𐬀𐬴𐬀 Aṣ̌aArta) is a Zoroastrian concept with a complex and highly nuanced range of meaning. It is commonly summarized in accord with its contextual implications of 'truth' and 'right' (or 'righteousness'), 'order' and 'right working'. For other connotations, see Meaning below. It is of cardinal importance to Zoroastrian theology and doctrine. In the moral sphere, aṣ̌a/arta represents what has been called "the decisive confessional concept of Zoroastrianism".
CimmeriansThe Cimmerians were an ancient Eastern Iranic equestrian nomadic people originating in the Pontic–Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West Asia. Although the Cimmerians were culturally Scythian, they formed an ethnic unit separate from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related and who displaced and replaced the Cimmerians. The Cimmerians themselves left no written records, and most information about them is largely derived from Assyrian records of the 8th to 7th centuries BC and from Graeco-Roman authors from the 5th century BC and later.
CaspiansThe Caspians (کاسپیها, Kaspyn; Κάσπιοι, Káspioi; Aramaic: ܟܣܦܝ, kspy; Կասպք, Kaspk’; Caspi, Caspiani) were a people of antiquity who dwelt along the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the region known as Caspiane. Caspian is the English version of the Greek ethnonym Kaspioi, mentioned twice by Herodotus among the Achaemenid satrapies of Darius the Great and applied by Strabo. The name is not attested in Old Iranian. The Caspians have generally been regarded as a pre-Indo-European people.
Eurasian SteppeThe Eurasian Steppe, also simply called the Great Steppe or the steppes, is the vast steppe ecoregion of Eurasia in the temperate grasslands, savannas and shrublands biome. It stretches through Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, western Russia, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang, Mongolia and Manchuria, with one major exclave, the Pannonian steppe, located mostly in Hungary. Since the Paleolithic age, the Steppe Route has connected Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, East Asia and South Asia economically, politically and culturally through overland trade routes.
