ArdabilArdabil (, Ardabīlor Ardebīl)Ardabīl) is a city in northwestern Iran, and the capital of Ardabil Province. As of 2016, there were 529,374 inhabitants in Ardabil living in 158,627 households. with the majority belonging to the Shia denomination of Islam. The dominant majority in the city are ethnic Iranian Azerbaijanis and the primary language of the people is Azerbaijani. Ardabil is known for its trade in silk and carpets. Ardabil rugs are renowned and the ancient Ardabil carpets are considered among the best of classical Persian carpets.
Aras (river)The Aras (also known as the Araks, Arax, Araxes, or Araz) is a river in the Caucasus. It rises in eastern Turkey and flows along the borders between Turkey and Armenia, between Turkey and the Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan, between Iran and both Azerbaijan and Armenia, and, finally, through Azerbaijan where it flows into the Kura river. It drains the south side of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains while the Kura drains the north side of the Lesser Caucasus. The river's total length is and its watershed covers an area of .
NastaliqNastaliq (ˌnæstəˈliːk,_ˈnæstəliːk; , næsˈthæʔliːq; nəsˈt̪ɑːliːq), also romanized as Nastaʿlīq or Nastaleeq, is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script, and it is used for some Indo-Iranian languages, predominantly Classical Persian, Urdu, Kashmiri, Saraiki and Punjabi (Shahmukhi). It is often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, but rarely for Arabic. Nastaliq developed in Iran from naskh beginning in the 13th century and remains very widely used in Iran, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan and other countries for written poetry and as a form of art.
Fuzuli (poet)Muhammad bin Suleyman (Məhəmməd Süleyman oğlu, مَحمد سلیمان اوغلی; 1483–1556), better known by his pen name Fuzuli (Füzuli, فضولی), was a 16th-century poet who composed works in his native Azerbaijani, as well as Persian and Arabic. He is regarded as one of the greatest poets of Turkic literature and a prominent figure in both Azerbaijani and Ottoman literature. Fuzuli's work was widely known and admired throughout the Turkic cultural landscape from the 16th to the 19th centuries, with his fame reaching as far as Central Asia and India.
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.
Tiflis GovernorateThe Tiflis Governorate was a province (guberniya) of the Caucasus Viceroyalty of the Russian Empire with its administrative center in Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi). In 1897, it constituted 44,607 sq. kilometres in area and had a population of 1,051,032 inhabitants. The Tiflis Governorate bordered the Elizavetpol Governorate to the southeast, the Erivan Governorate to the south, the Kars Oblast to the southwest, the Batum Oblast to the west, the Kutaisi Governorate to the northwest, the Terek Oblast to the north, the Dagestan Oblast to the northeast, and after 1905, the Zakatal Okrug to the east.
Tehran provinceTehran province (استان تهران Ostān-e Tehrān) is one of the 31 provinces of Iran. It covers an area of and is located to the north of the central plateau of Iran. At the time of the National Census of 2006, the province had a population of 13,281,858 in 3,729,010 households. The following census in 2011 counted 12,183,391 people in 3,731,480 households, by which time Karaj, Nazarabad, and Savojbolagh Counties had been separated from the province to become Alborz province.
SumgaitSumgait (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.
KarabakhKarabakh (Qarabağ ɡɑˈɾɑbɑɣ; Ġarabaġ ʁɑɾɑˈbɑʁ) is a geographic region in present-day southwestern Azerbaijan and eastern Armenia, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura and Aras. It is conventionally divided into three regions: Highland Karabakh, Lowland Karabakh (the steppes between the Kura and Aras rivers), and the eastern slopes of the Zangezur Mountains (roughly Syunik and Kalbajar–Lachin).
AshikAn ashik (aşıq, عاشؽق; âşık; عاشیق—all from عاشِق) or ashugh (աշուղ; აშუღი) is traditionally a singer-poet and bard who accompanies his song—be it a dastan (traditional epic story, also known as hikaye) or a shorter original composition—with a long-necked lute (usually a bağlama or saz) in Turkic (primarily Turkish and Azerbaijani cultures, including Iranian Azerbaijanis) and non-Turkic cultures of South Caucasus (primarily Armenian and Georgian).
