Travelling Around Britain and the World

Friday 15 August 2014

Into Georgia, The Vineyards of Kakheti: Part 5 of From the Caspian to the Black Sea

Sheki to the Georgian Border

In the morning we left our caravanserai….

Leaving the Caravanserai, Sheki

… under the stern but benign (?) gaze of Azerbaijan's late President Heydǝr Əliyev ….

Heydǝr Əliyev says 'Goodbye'

… and set off westwards towards Georgia. We travelled through flat agricultural land with the Caucasus to our right and behind them Dagestan and the rest of Russia. Away to our left behind lower hills lay Georgia. We would follow this plain jutting out between two ranges until Azerbaijan came to its end at the Lagodekhi border post.

The road was well made and smooth, as were all we encountered in the country. Zagatala and Balakǝn, the last two towns in Azerbaijan looked as neat and tidy as everywhere else, though here, for the first and only time in the Caucasus, we saw horses and carts on the roads, mainly moving loads of freshly dried hay. We passed the end of the road to the locally well-known mineral water producing town of Qax. I love the name, but ‘q’ is pronounced as a hard ‘g’ and ‘x’ as the ‘ch’ in ‘loch’ so it sounds more like a Klingon’s favourite food than the vocalisation of a duck.

The next stage of the journey, Sheki to Telavi

Into Georgia

At the border Yassim and Togrul were well enough known to be able to drive through the preliminary gate. We had our cases x-rayed and our passports stamped, then they drove us into no man's land. We made our farewells and trundled our cases across the invisible line into Georgia where we were welcomed by Dinara, our Georgian guide. It was like being handed over at the Glienicke Bridge in cold-war Berlin, if rather less tense.

Georgia

The Georgian formalities were minimal. We met Alex our driver who deposited our cases in the back of a large black BMW four by four and we set off into a new country, not forgetting to set our watches back an hour because although both countries are in the same time zone Azerbaijan moves its clocks forward for summer and Georgia does not.

From the border post we drove through a series of contiguous villages which looked less prosperous than their Azeri neighbours. We were in now in the valley of the Alazani River in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti. The valley can be described, without serious exaggeration, as a hundred kilometre long vineyard. Unsurprisingly our first stop was for a wine-tasting.

Khareba Cellars, Kvareli

Khareba is one of Georgia’s largest wine producers. They have vineyards in Kakheti and in the western region of Imereti and own two wineries as well as the storage facility at Kvareli that we visited.

We had a false start, coming through the wrong gate, and having a lengthy walk to find the entrance to the cellars which occupy 8km of tunnels dug into the hillside.

Entrance to the tunnels, Khareba Winery,  Kvareli

The tunnels keep the wine at a steady 10º throughout the year and we walked past thousands of slumbering bottles on our way to the museum and tasting area.

Maturing wine, Khareba Winery,  Kvareli

The Georgians are convinced (and they may actually be right) that wine making was invented by Georgians; there is certainly solid evidence that they were at it 7,000 years ago. Their technique involves treading grapes in stone or wooden vats and then putting everything – juice, skins, stalks and pips - into a clay pot known as a qvervi. The qvervi is buried in the ground for temperature control and is covered but not sealed. The juice ferments on the skins and then stays on them for far longer than in the western European tradition. The resulting wines have a flavour from the clay pot and are heavily oxidized, the whites are brown - the colour of tea is deemed appropriate - and the taste is unfamiliar to the western European wine drinker, though much appreciated by Georgians. The reds are more mainstream but the best red grape, Saperavi, has so much colour - having red flesh and juice as well red skin - that it is as much a dye as a drink.

Vat for treading grapes, Khareba Winery, Kvareli

Georgia has over five hundred native grape varieties, but subtle differences are lost in the qvervi. In the past they would have also been transported in a goatskin and drunk from a cow’s horn - I doubt much of the character of the grape would have survived that! There are now wines made by 'the European method' too, though at some wineries that still involves the use of a qvervi. For an appreciation of the wines we tasted here and elsewhere see the Tasting Georgian Wine post. At Khareba we tasted the produce of several different grape varieties vinified using both European and Georgian methods. The overall standard was high, and one or two were excellent.

About to start tasting, Khareba Winery, Kvareli

After our tasting we took the lift up to the roof - or ground level as we had been down a hole – to the restaurant and chose a table on the terrace overlooking the Alazani valley. Knowing we were eating in our guesthouse that evening and aware that Georgian tradition demands that the meal would be vast, we settled for a light lunch, ordering one green and one chicken salad. We expected the chicken salad to be slices of meat with some foliage, but it was just chicken, somewhat reminiscent of rillettes, or maybe a Lao meat salad. We washed this down with water, we had already drunk wine and there was another tasting to go, so restraint seemed wise.

Gremi, the Church of the Archangel (front) and the Tower Palace

Gremi

Gremi, a little further up the valley, was the capital of Kakheti from 1466 to 1672. Georgian history is, to say the least, complicated. Separate eastern and western kingdoms in antiquity were united in the eleventh century leading to a Georgian golden age which lasted, despite intervention of the Mongols, until the start of the fifteenth century. Weakened by the Black Death and buffeted by repeated visits from Tamerlane and his hordes, Georgia fracturing into four petty kingdoms of which Kakheti was the easternmost. The tower palace, on a bluff above the road, is a small, modest palace as befits a small, modest kingdom.

Inside the Tower Palace, Gremi

The Church of the Archangels beside it was built by King Levan in 1565 and the frescoes painted shortly afterward.

Inside the Church of the Archangels, Gremi

There was also a winery within the main complex (well this is Georgia) ….

Old qvervi in the winery Gremi

...while at the foot of the bluff are the remains of a caravansary, baths and market. What we saw was largely restoration; the originals were reduced to rubble by the Persian Shah Abbas in 1616. The eastern Georgian kingdoms were under constant pressure from the Persian Empire while the western kingdoms were harried by the Ottomans.

Lynne outside the restored caravansarai, Gremi

Twins Winery, Napareuli

At Napareuli we dropped in on the much smaller Twins Winery where they were kind enough to show us around. They have Georgia's, and hence the world's largest qvervi, but they use it for showing an introductory film rather than for wine making.

The world's biggest qvervi, Twins Winery, Napareuli

We saw the vineyards and inspected their brand new qvervis set in a concrete floor ready for this year's vintage.

Brand new qvervis ready for this year's harvest, Twins Winery, Napareuli

Less willing to compromise with western techniques, they even make their ‘European style’ wines in qvervis - which makes them semi-European at best. Whatever my western trained palate may say about qvervi wines, the Georgians love them, so much so that they have had ‘winemaking in qvervi’ inscribed on the UNESCO list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (see Tasting Georgian Wine)

The wines, Twins Winery, Napareuli, Saperavi, Georgian style white, European style white

Guesthouse in Telavi

From Gremi the capital of Kakhetti moved to Telavi which, with 20,000 inhabitants is still the region’s chief town. We arrived in the early evening and thought the town had a sad post-Soviet look, although we were to partly revise that opinion in the morning.

Telavi sits on the hills that are the southern boundary of the vineyard-filled Alazani Valley. Our guest house was at the top of the town so our room and the balcony on which we had dinner had superb views over the valley to the distant foothills of the Caucasus beyond.

Looking over Telavi and the Alazani Valley

Dinner was as vast as we had expected. Bread, tomato and cucumber salad, aubergine purée, pork stew, pancakes stuffed with a walnut paste, slabs of fried pork, flaky pastry stuffed with meat and finally our first khachapuri – the cheese pie that is ubiquitous through Georgia, though each region takes pride in its own variation on the basic theme of melted cheese.

The four of us, Lynne and I, Dinara the guide and Alex the driver, made a spirited effort but could eat less than half the food on the table. This, we discovered, is the Georgian way; they would hate a guest to go hungry - or thirsty, a litre jug of murky brown white wine was also plonked on the table. By the time we reached the bottom I was developing a taste for it.

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Location: Telavi, Georgia

Thursday 14 August 2014

Sheki (or Şǝki): Part 4 of From the Caspian to the Black Sea

Şǝki
Azerbaijan

We had expected our room to be overwarm, but we had not realised that the wooden floors of the room above would make any footfall sound like a hammer striking an anvil, nor that we would hear every word of the not entirely sober monologue of its Russian woman occupant - her husband was either dead or asleep. If only I spoke the language I would have ample ammunition for blackmail. And then there were the youth of Sheki, some of whom thought it a good idea to drive their Ladas up and down the main drag with windows open and music blaring. 'They think they're cute,' Yassim said with contempt when we mentioned it. I found it hard to forgive their taste for the most anodyne europop.

So where is Sheki?

Khan's Palace, Sheki

Breakfast, a most disorganised affair, did not start until 9 but was redeemed by the quality of the local honey. Afterwards we set off towards the walled fortress that covers much of the north end of town.

Khan's Palace, Sheki

The original Sheki was even further north but was destroyed by floods in 1716. The local ruler, Haji Chalabi Khan (for whom last night's restaurant was named) rebuilt the fort and in the 1740s declared himself leader of an independent Khanate. After even more calamitous floods in 1772, he moved down the hill to his reserve fortress at a place then called Nukha and renamed it Sheki. The kilometre long walls of that fortress surround, among other things, the palace he built in 1740. The palace stands behind two huge plane trees so old that they were mature before building started. It is not large, being constructed for administration rather than as living quarters. The reception room is lavishly decorated, the secretary’s room less so as he should not be distracted from his work while upstairs the ladies’ room, well separated so the waiting ladies should hear nothing of the men's deliberations, is sumptuous. The Khan's private room is filled with artwork reminding him of the dangers of neglecting his duties. No photographs are allowed inside, but below are scans of two of the postcards we purchased in the gift shop (the only postcards we saw in Azerbaijan).

Inside the Khan's Palace, Sheki, (postcard bought at the palace)

The palace windows are mostly of Şǝbǝkǝ the local version of stained glass.

Inside the Khan's Palace, Sheki
(postcard bought at the palace)

Şǝbǝkǝ Stained Glass

Inside the walled fortress we visited the workshop of Sheki’s sole remaining master of this craft. Standing below a picture of his grandfather (the family resemblance was remarkable) the latest generation of the family showed us how the windows are put together, the glass fitting into a framework of grooved wood without nails or glue. The frames are often large and the designs intricate, involving tiny pieces of glass and wood – as many as a thousand per square metre. Each window is designed by the master craftsman – our demonstrator’s father - who supervises the immensely skilful business of cutting the glass and wood.

Putting together a Şǝbǝkǝ window

The handicraft centre within the fort did not detain us long, but at the entrance there was a sweet stall. Sweets are a local specialty, particularly 'halvasi', a variation on baklava. A line of shops specialising in these sweets stood below our caravansary, but we choose to buy ours here - in sealed packages we hoped the halvasi and mindal (nuts in a caramel or sugar coating) would keep until we reached home.

Albanian Temple, Sheki

Also in the grounds is a circular tower, which Yassim described as an Albanian Temple to the sun god, adding that the Russians had added the extra towers to give it a basilica shape and turned it into a church. The 'Caucasian Albanians' - of whom more later - became Christians in the fourth century and the building, though old, did not look quite that old, so I am unsure about this information.

'Albanian' Temple, Sheki

Sheki War Memorial

The old town of Sheki climbs the west side of a narrow valley from the modern town to the fortress. Half way down the valley, on the higher eastern side is the war memorial. As part of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan became involved in the Second World War in 1941 when the Nazis attacked Soviet Russia with the oil fields of Baku among their main objectives. Several hundred thousand Azeris died during the four years of war, a huge sacrifice for a small country.

War Memorial, Sheki

The site of the memorial also gives a good view over the modern town.

Sheki from the War Memorial

Sheki Friday Mosque

We left the memorial and drove down to the Friday Mosque in the town centre beside the park where we had eaten last night. Young men played football in the courtyard as children were streaming in to attend the madrassa. The Qur'an is the word of God and God spoke in Arabic, so children must learn Arabic to read and understand the Qur'an. Our entrance disrupted a lesson going on in one corner, but dotted around the rest of the mosque boys were kneeling before books on low lecterns, rocking backwards and forwards as they read the Holy Scripture aloud. The building is functional rather than an architectural masterpiece and no photographs were allowed inside..

The Friday Mosque, Sheki

The more secular surroundings of Sheki market are a short drive away. We wandered round, saw more halvasi,....

Trays of Halvasi, Sheki market

….. admired the quality of the meat, the carcasses hanging outside the butchers' shops, and purchased some sumac, a spice it is often hard to find at home but here is widespread and cheap.

Butchers, Sheki market - not a good place for vegetarians

Kiş Albanian Church

Kiş is a village 10km into the hills from Sheki and we went there next to see the ‘Albanian’ church.

The 'Albanians' are a somewhat mysterious people who once inhabited much of northwestern Azerbaijan – they have no connection with modern Albania - and converted to Christianity in the fourth century. They have now disappeared but are generally thought to have been assimilated into the Armenian and Azeri populations.

Most of Kiş lies off the road and we struggled up through narrow cobbled lanes. It was not only us who were struggling, we followed a man working hard to get his turkey dinner home, the turkey kept looking up at him and blinking.

Following a man with a turkey through Kis

The Albanian church is at the top of the narrow lanes. Outside is a bust of Thor Heyerdahl who contributed to the restoration of the ancient building. The church is old, but the site has been of religious significance since long before the church was built. In the churchyard, in glass topped tombs, are the bronze-age skeletons of a man well over two metres tall and woman of 1.9m.

Thor Hayerdahl, Kiş

Thor Heyerdahl saw the size of these skeletons, knew that Albus is the Latin for white, observed the boats depicted in the Qobustan petroglyphs and postulated that the Albanians migrated north and become the Vikings. Nobody questions Heyerdahl’s integrity as an adventurer, but his qualifications in anthropology are more problematic. This was not the only time he came up with a theory and then went looking for evidence to ‘prove’ it, which is not the scientific way. The story that the Albanians were blond and blue-eyed may have been a yarn spun by an over-obliging local, and ‘Albanian’ is more likely to derive from the Armenian for ‘affable’ – the soubriquet of an early Albanian leader - than the Latin for ‘white’.

The Albanian Church, Kiş

Sac for Lunch

Three-quarters of the way back to Sheki, Togrul pulled into a restaurant in a garden behind a large house. Earlier Yassim had said that he and Togrul would treat us to lunch today, maybe as a response to me paying for the barbecue yesterday or, more likely, as goodwill gesture from the travel company. Yassim had been on the phone earlier and this was obviously what he had been booking.

We were shown to a table on a balcony overlooking the garden. Water melon and assorted salads were already on the table, but we did not have to wait long before the sac (pronounced ‘sadj’) arrived. Slices of beef, aubergine, potato and flatbread, with tomatoes, onions and tasty little button mushrooms jostled together in a shallow wok perched on its own charcoal brazier. The appealing individual favours mingled to make a whole that was more than the not inconsiderable sum of their parts and the juices collected in the bottom in a tomato/aubergine mush that was toe-curlingly wonderful.

Lynne and sac, near Sheki - this quantity is for four, not two!

Lunch had started late and gone on long, so it was mid-afternoon before we were back at the caravansary.

It seemed a good moment to write the postcards we had bought in the fort. Ten minutes stroll down the hill, just past the conveniently placed post office, was a restaurant and bar. There was nobody else at the tables in the small, rather unkempt garden, but there was a young man who was happy to pour us a beer.

At lunch we had drunk water and the fresh cherry drink Yassim called compote, but the lure of cold beer was irresistible on a stunningly hot afternoon so we ordered two glasses of Aysberq. The Titanic Brewery of Burslem produces an excellent beer also call Iceberg. Apart from logos featuring a large ship, the only thing Titanic Iceberg has in common with Azerbaijani Aysberq is that they are both beer. That said, the cold, fizzy Aysberq hit a dry spot within us and sorted it. Two were required to finish the post cards, but they cost pence and it was money well spent. We took the cards to the post office where an obliging man applied his glue stick to the back of eighteen individual stamps and we wished the cards bon voyage.

Walking down the hill for an Aysberq

Dinner at the Chalabi Khan

In the evening we returned to the Chalabi Khan Restaurant. Studying the menu, we wondered why some dishes were so much more expensive than others. Fortunately we spotted Yassim and Togrul at a nearby table and sought advice. Some dishes, they told us, were for individuals, some for two, others for four, but there was no indication in otherwise exemplary English language menu, and had they not been there we would have been unable to discuss this with the waiters.

The fried chicken and potatoes, they told us were for two. ‘We have eaten it recently,’ Togrul told us. ‘They use intensively farmed chickens and they are very scrawny.’ Perhaps we should have taken heed of his warning, but we ordered it anyway. Someone somewhere in Azerbaijan, we learned, has found a way of breeding meat-free chickens. After three world class meals in a row we were brought down to earth with a bump.

Later, men started arriving in twos and threes and filling up the tables. For a group of men to come out at half past nine, sit outside restaurant and order a pot of tea, a dish of jam and sweets seems odd to us, but one should not knock such sobriety.

Evening in Sheki - some have tea and jam, other just sit on the park benches and talk
(but where are all the women?)

Back in our caravansary we had a better night. The baby upstairs may have cried, but its parents were trying hard to get it to sleep and it was infinitely preferable to a drunken Russian. There may have been fewer youths in noisy cars, and it may have been cooler (or I had grown used to the temperature), but either way, I slept well.

From the Caspian to the Black Sea

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Location: Sheki, Azerbaijan

Wednesday 13 August 2014

Baku to Şǝki (Sheki): Part 3 of From the Caspian to the Black Sea

Azerbaijan

Leaving Baku

Next morning, Togrul drove us (and Yassim) westward from Baku towards Sheki - more correctly Şǝki - and the mountains. If the growth of Baku around its bay seems to have been controlled, its westward expansion has been untrammelled, and we drove a long way before the city eventually dwindling into ripples of houses on the rolling scrubby grassland.

From Baku to Sheki

Our day’s journey would involve a long, slow climb from below sea-level semi-desert to the green foothills of the Caucasus. Hour by hour the change was almost imperceptible, but the cumulative effect was marked indeed.

Semi-desert outside Baku

The road was good; the dual carriageway out of Baku giving way to a wide and well-made two lane highway.

The Dir Baba Mausoleum, Maraza

After 90 minutes, as we approached the small town of Maraza we turned right and followed a smaller road down a ravine to the Diri Baba mausoleum. Diri Baba means the 'living grandfather’, but little is known about the mausoleum except that it was decorated with calligraphy by an artist signing himself ‘Dervish’. His writing includes the date 1402 and a fragment of the name of an otherwise unknown architect.

The Diri Baba Mausoleum, Maraza

The shortage of facts has allowed a wealth of stories to grow up. Most commonly, Diri Baba was, a saint who, after a life of good works, died while at prayer. At first his followers thought he was still praying but after a while they realised his lack of movement had a more permanent cause. Before he could be buried his body miraculously disappeared, which explains the name and why nobody is buried in the mausoleum.

Prayer Room Diri Baba Mausoleum, Maraza

The neat brick staircase was built in 2008, but the old steps inside are high and uneven. We clambered up, peered into the prayer room and emerged on the roof which gave a good view back to Maraza.

Maraza from the roof of the Diri Baba Mausoleum

Returning to the village we stopped to buy water in the commercial district.....

Shopping street, Mazara

...before continuing to the larger town of Şamaxi. In North Korea hillsides were covered with slogans that no one would translate. There was one outside Şamaxi too, but the translation was not a state secret; the late President Heydər Əliyev wants us to know that the ‘Independence of Azerbaijan is Eternal and Irreversible’. Thanks for the tautology, Heydǝr.

The Independence of Azerbaijan is Eternal and Irreversible, near Şamaxi

Şamaxi, The Friday Mosque

Şamaxi has a population of 30,000 but was much bigger when it was the capital of the Shirvanshahs who ruled Shirvan - eastern Azerbaijan and parts of Dagestan - from 799 to 1607. Earthquakes destroyed the royal palace, so they moved to Baku where we visited their 14th century replacement residence yesterday. Subsequent earthquakes, and a little warfare, means nothing remains of the Şamaxi palace.

The mosque is sometimes said to date from the 8th century, making it the second oldest in the Caucasus, but nothing survives of the original. The 10th version survived eight major earthquakes before succumbing to the ninth in 1902. The replacement, built on the same spot, has very recently undergone serious restoration and looks brand new.

Friday Mosque, Şamaxi

The inner section is traditional, the decoration, except around the mihrab, being unusually restrained. The outer section resembles the nave of a cathedral, making it an impressive, if slightly unusual building.

Mihrab, Friday Mosque, Şamaxi

Şamaxi, Yeddi Gumbaz (The Seven Dome Cemetery)

South of the town an unsurfaced road dips into a valley before climbing to where Yeddi Gumbaz cemetery overlooks the city.

Şamaxi from the Yeddi Gumbaz cemetery

The ancient cemetery is still in use and this modern gravestone must be one of the last with Azeri written in Cyrillic.

Modern gravestone, Yeddi Gumbaz, Şamaxi

The name means ‘seven domes,’ and the cemetery surrounds the seven 18th century domed tombs built by the family of Mustafa Khan, the last Khan of Şamaxi - though only three have survived later seismic activity.

The three remaining domes, Yeddi Gumbaz, Şamaxi

Inside the best preserved we found grave markers, a bat and something at heel level that hissed at us. Azerbaijan has its share of venomous snakes - in fact more than its share - so we conducted a dignified retreat without bothering to find out what it was.

Inside the domes, Yeddi Gumbaz, Şamaxi

We had climbed 700m since leaving Baku and west of Şamaxi most of the traffic drops down the pass southward to the arid lowlands but we turned off, keeping to the higher ground as we headed further west.

Keeping to the high ground from Şamaxi

Bado - Unpalatable Water but a Fine Lunch

Our next stop was at Bado, not so much a village as a pull off beside a spring. It was already lunchtime but Yassim was adamant that it was better to taste the water before lunch – ‘with a full stomach,’ he said encouragingly, ‘you would probably be sick.’

The spring, Bado

There was a modest sized scrum around the spring but Lynne found her way to the front and filled a water bottle. As I took the photograph below, beeping from behind made me jump out of the way as a man backed his car up to the spring. He took several 10l containers from the boot and joined the scrum. The water was refreshingly cool and did not taste that bad, if you ignore the powerful eggy odour. I am sure it did us good, but I doubt I could find a use for ten litres of it!

Lynne collects Bado water

Leaving the spring we turned back the way we had come. After a few minutes Togrul swung us into a courtyard beside a ‘restaurant’ sign. We had passed several such places but none of them looked open or even like restaurants – and neither did this. We passed under a makeshift entrance into an empty yard, and then into an inner yard where we parked. Beyond a garden sloped down to a small lake and dotted around it were half a dozen tables each one under its own shady roof. This was the restaurant and it was obviously open as one other table was already occupied.

More like a garden than a restaurant, Bado

We chose a spot near the water and a young man came over and greeted Yassim like an old friend. 'There is no written menu,' Yassim told us, 'but they do Azerbaijan barbecue.' That sounded good, so we followed Yassim's example and ordered lentil soup followed by barbecued lamb. 'I'll have a tomato omelette,' said Togrul 'because I have not had any breakfast.' I could not follow his logic, but, yet again, I had to admire his English. Drivers tend to smile a lot, insist on carrying your cases and generally try to be helpful - I have a high regard for them on the whole, but not as linguists. Togrul did all those things but also spoke English with an excellent accent, a colloquial turn of phrase and had good listening skills. He had learned, he said, from courses on the internet.

The soup arrived and also the tomato and cucumber salad, aubergine salad and cheese without which no meal is possible in Azerbaijan A plate of barbecued lamb soon followed. 'Fingers are the best way to eat this,' Yassim said somewhat unnecessarily - there was no other way. It was a fabulous meaty feast, a carnivore’s delight, the lamb being perfectly cooked, tender and juicy.

Lynne and Yassim at the restaurant, near Bado

As we ate we talked about Yassim and Togrul’s travels. They had both travelled widely in the Caucasus, though not to Armenia with whom the Karabakh war has been on hold for the last twenty years, with occasional outbreaks of shooting. Togrul had also visited Hong Kong. 'I thought I would starve, ' he said, 'I could find nothing to eat. Then I saw MacDonald’s. I would never normally go there, but it was such a relief.' We regard Hong Kong as one of the finest places to eat in the whole world, but Togrul could not be persuaded. 'Even the rice tasted different,' he complained and then, making a pincer movement with his fingers, 'can you eat with those little sticks?' 'It’s easy enough,' we said, 'with a bit of practice.' He looked surprised. 'You don't have to be born to it?'

After the meal Yassim ordered tea and jam. The tea came in small tulip shaped glasses and Yassim popped a lump of sugar in his mouth and sucked the tea through it, a trick we had previously seen in Iran. Jam, as in Armenia (but don't tell the Azeri) is more lumps of fruit in heavy syrup than jam. It is not boiled to a setting point and is eaten with a spoon rather than spread on bread.

We had drunk only water and what Yassim called 'compote' - sweetened, freshly made cherry juice - but we both felt we could nod off for a while. Perhaps it was a good thing Togrul had eaten a lighter meal, even if I could not share his attitude to food in general.

The Bucket Market at Nic

Bucket market, Nic

We continued through the small town of Ismalliyah and stopped in the village of Nic. At the 'bucket market’ - fruit and veg is sold by the bucket; if you want a smaller quantity go somewhere else - an elderly couple insisted we photograph them and  that Lynne should be in the picture, too. They acted as though we were doing them a favour, though to us it felt the other way round. We asked them for walnut jam, something we had enjoyed in Armenia, but they had none. We bought a jar from the next door stall and then our ‘friends’ found some walnut and apple, so we bought that too, it seemed only fair.

Lynne and new friends, bucket market, Nic

Sheki

We reached Sheki in late afternoon. The town, with some 60,000 inhabitants, is shaped like a thermometer, with a big bulb at the low southern end and a long, thin stem straggling northwards up the valley of a dry stream. Most buildings are constructed from flat red bricks, unlike the limestone of Baku.

The Caravanserai, Sheki

The domed entrance to the caravanserai

We stayed in the magnificent caravanserai near the top of the town. Passing through a domed entrance we found ourselves in a quadrangle surrounded by a two storey stone building. The rooms were basic but clean, though we wondered if the lack of air-conditioning - or even a fan - might prove a problem. The 'Lonely Planet' describes the bathrooms as 'humorously dated', though the shower may have looked antique it was the best we encountered in the Caucasus.

Inside the caravanserai, Sheki

Later we made the twenty minute walk to the town centre where the small park plays host to the tables of two establishments. One is apparently called the Qaqarin (Azeri spelling of the first man in space) though there is no sign. It was packed, the tables occupied by groups of men drinking tea and eating jam - there was not a woman in sight. In the opposite corner the Chalabi Khan restaurant was serving meals to a more mixed clientele. Our choice was simple.

The road down to the town centre, Sheki

Piti (Two-part Stew) and Other Goodies, Sheki

Sharing a Greek salad - local feta, olives, tomatoes and cucumber - and the inevitable heap of bread, Lynne ordered a chicken kebab while I opted for piti - or two part stew - the local specialty. It arrived in the clay mug in which it was cooked. Peering into the mug I saw a dense greasy liquid with a lump of sheep fat floating on it. Fortunately I had read the guide book so I knew what to do. Tearing a pile of bread into my dish, I sprinkled it with sumac (available, like salt and pepper, on every table) and poured the liquid from the clay mug on top. This soup was the first part and very good it was too. Once finished I tipped out the solids, which consisted of lamb (allegedly lamb tail) chick peas and that lump of fat, and mixed it all up with more sumac. The result was as richly sheepy as it is possible to get. After our lamb lunch this was my biggest sheepfest since Xinjiang, but here there had been alternatives, I had chosen it, and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. A couple of big glasses of draught beer dealt with the rehydration problem and I was feeling mellow when the bill came. Four glasses of beer, salad, piti and kebab came to 11 Manat, less than £9. I felt very mellow indeed.

Lynne eats her kebab, and I have reached part 2 of my piti, Chalabi Khan restaurant, Sheki

The twenty minute walk back up the hill was a sweaty business, even in the relative cool of the evening. Our room bore an unpleasant similarity to an oven, but there was worse to come.

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