History of Tat people

The Sunni Tats mainly live in the Guba and Shabran regions of Azerbaijan and also in Dagestan (Russia) they inhabit villages to the west of the city of Derbent.

It is also worth noting that the Christian population in the mountainous regions of the Crimea were also called tat, but spoke Greek.

The Massagetae[21] unambiguously participated in the etogenesis of the Tats, tribes of Caucasian Albania and Arab-Turkic conquerors.

[22] Until the October Revolution, the Tats used Persian as a written language, a small part of them spoke Arabic.

M. Velili-Baharly claims that the majority of the Azeri-Turks of north-western Azerbaijan, as well as the mountainous region of the Quba and Shemakhi districts, as well as the Absheron peninsula, consists of turkicized tats.

These are lajjs (lakhijs), which were designated (registered) as Azerbaijanis both in the population censuses and in official legal documents proving the identity.

[29][30][31] The Laijs live in Gare Kakheti (Eastern Georgia), in the village of Gombori, Sagarejo region.

The author of the article was familiar from childhood with the original ethnic community of the Laijs, with which he was even linked by certain family ties.

And one more interesting circumstance: in the village of Gombori, there is also another group of Muslims who call themselves tat, but speak Azeri rather than Tati.

The Laij are people of Iranian / Tato-speaking origin, and the Tats still live in Azerbaijan and Iran (in the Zohra and Talikan regions), as well as in Dagestan.