Arasbaran
In-between the Caspian, Caucasus and Mediterranean region, the area covers mountains up to 2,200 metres, high alpine meadows, semi-arid steppes, rangelands and forests, rivers and springs.
[6] There is a speculation that the region referred to as Syah Kuh by the 10th-century Muslim geographer, Ibn Hawqal,[7] corresponds to the present day Arasbaran.
[14] Yaqut al-Hamawi, writing in early thirteenth century, describes Kaleybar in the following words, County between Azerbaijan and Erran....
This county produces pomegranates of incomparable beauty, excellent figs and grapes that are dried on fires (because the sun is always obscured by thick clouds).
Hamdallah Mustawfi, writing in the-mid fourteenth century, describes Ahar as "a little town",[18] and Kaleybar as "A village of Azerbaijan, in the woods near a mountain which comprises a fortress".
Arasbaran tribes were heavily involved in armed conflicts; the revolutionary and anti-revolutionary camps were headed, respectively, by Sattar Khan and Rahimkhan Chalabianloo, both from Qaradağ region.
When in 1925 Rezā Shāh deposed Ahmad Shah Qajar and founded the Pahlavi dynasty, Arasbaran's gradual decline started.
The large walnut and Cornus mas trees, which grow wild alongside streams, provide an important income source for inhabitants.
More exotic plant species, such as redcurrant, truffle and herbs with application in traditional medicine significantly add to the ecological importance of Arasbaran region.
Another potential tourist attraction are the summer camps (ییلاق) of semi-settled Tribes of Arasbaran, known as Ilat, who spend five months of the year in uplands for grazing their livestock.
A tourist, while enjoying the fresh thin air of the mountains, may get a chance to observe the age-long traditional living styles of the locals.
Some of the attractive sites are Aliabad mountains, meadows above Shojaabad, East Azerbaijan village, and Chaparli and Aqdash summer quarters, all located in a driving distance from Kaleybar.
[46] The defeat of Soviet-created "Azerbaijan People's Government" following World War II and the ensuing events, resulted in mass migration of inhabitants to Tabriz and Tehran.
After the election of Ahmadinezhad as president of Iran, a rumour was circulated that UNESCO will compensate the residents to have the village evacuated for wild-life protection efforts.
Recently, the deputy governor of the East Azarbaijan province has mentioned the phenomenon of reverse migration to Khoda Afarin and Kaleybar counties.
[49] The spoken language of majority of the inhabitant is Azeri, which has a reasonable degree of intelligibility with Turkmeni, Afshar and the Anatolian Turkish.
[53] Consequently, in Azerbaijani speaking society the boundary between the private and shared memories becomes fuzzy, and the magnitude of time lapse between the events shrinks.
[57] Another example is Mohamad Golmohamadi's long poem, titled I am madly in love with Qareh Dagh (قاراداغ اؤلکهسینین گؤر نئجه دیوانهسی ام), which is a concise description of the region's cultural landscape.
These places, generally known as Ojaq, are located in areas with rapid variation on the land topography, and are in some way linked to Djins via established narratives.
At some sites, which are considered sacred by many villages, people will occasionally gather to slaughter sacrificial animals or offer a simple meal of freshly baked bread and cheese with tea.
A hybrid child is born, but the girl runs away at the first opportunity leaving the lamenting bear entreatingly crying for his lost wife.
[59] Vergi, meaning gift, is a perceived ability for performing extraordinary feats such as prophesy or healing, which supposedly can only be received from god or from Shia' Imams.
[63] In many villages of Qaradağ, palm sized metallic icons fixed on a medium-sized wooden handles, locally known as Toğs, are harbingers of the exact hour when Husayn was killed; allegedly, they relapse to utter in-animation following ten days of relentless erratic movements at the hands of their carriers (alamdars).
Orhan Pamuk in 2001 Turkish novel, My Name Is Red,[64] gives a vivid description of Turkic people's love-hate attitude towards dogs.
[citation needed] Carpet weaving stands out as the acme of Azeri art and people of Arasbaran have significantly contributed to this artistic tradition.
Verni is a carpet-like kilim with a delicate and fine warp and weft, which is woven without a previous sketch, thanks to the creative talents of nomadic women and girls.
The number of ashughs has significantly increased after Aşiq Imran Heydəri (عاشیق ایمران حیدری) started accepting pupils to his academic style classes in Tabriz.
Up until the Islamic revolution the region had a subsistence economy – all food was produced within the villages and the surplus was bartered with items supplied by travelling salesman.
Rainfed agriculture on the steep slopes had severely eroded the farms and productivity had dropped to an unsustainable low level, and the inhabitants had to supplement their income by taking seasonal construction jobs in Tehran.
[citation needed] After the revolution, thanks to the construction of roads giving accessibility to larger town markets, livestock production became the dominant mode of the region's economy.
