Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan.9
By Vugar Imanov - Trend Life:
We continue to acquaint readers of Trend Life with poorly known ancient architectural monuments of Azerbaijan.
This time, our road lay to the village of Basgal of Ismayilli district of Azerbaijan. One of the most ancient human settlements in Azerbaijan was situated in this area.
In addition, the village is located on the Silk Road and is known as the birthplace of silk products and national kalaghai silk kerchief.
In the mountainous Basgal, nature was preserved in its original form: the purest springs, virgin forests, rivers, mountains covered with snow. Archaeologists discovered a settlement dating back to the first and second centuries here.
Basgal is a real historical open-air museum, which keeps a lot of secrets unknown. The ruins of the unique fortress of X-XIII centuries, which is located on an extremely picturesque area next to the Basgal, near the village of Sulut, are one of them.
The locals call this fortress located on the right bank of the Haram river, "Girkh Otag" ("Forty rooms"), or "Girkh Giz Galasy" ("Castle of the forty maidens"). This fortress was very well guarded and was a harem of Shirvan khans, according to the legend.
The legend says that the rulers kept one beauty in each room, and each of them had no idea about the existence of the other maidens. Ruins of the fortress indicate that there were large and spacious rooms, the number of which exceeded 40.
In those centuries, this fortress was called "Haram Galasy."
By the way, on the way to the village of Sulut there are the ruins of the construction - a kind of barn, which was used as a "fridge" for storing food. Experts attribute this discovery to the middle of the XVIII century - time of the reign of Mustafa Khan.
