About an hour drive along the new motorway from Quba district center, hidden on the northern slope of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range, at the height of 2100-2200 m above sea level, there is the oldest Azerbaijan settlement - Khinalug. The villagers call it Kyat and designate themselves as kyaty - direct descendants of the biblical Noah.
Khinalug is over 5,000 years old. For centuries, this village has been cut off from civilization by hard-to-reach mountains with dangerous rocky cliffs. Due to the isolation, its residents managed to preserve their unique language, not belonging to any language group, as well as traditions and customs found nowhere else.
Khinalug population is about 2,000, all the residents are aboriginals, and divided into 4 families. Each family has its own graveyard, its own patterns for carpets and clothing. Khinalug residents practice Muslim and before Islam they were fire worshipers. This is proved by the fire temples and some semi-pagan traditions having nothing to do with the Muslim ones.
The locals are very religious. Not far from the village, there are a lot of holy places: graves of saints, caves and unexplored archaeological sites. Some of them were built as early as the Middle Ages: the Hydyr Nebi tomb, Sheikh Shalbuza Mosque, Abu Muslim Mosque (the XII century), Pirdzhomyard Mosque (1388).
Since 2006 the life of this unique mountain settlement changed a lot, because of the construction of a new paved road. Tourists started visiting it, and the locals got also a chance to go outside the village. Today, many locals also speak the Azerbaijani language, and some of them know Russian. They buy household goods in the city, in their turn, they trade homespun items, food products and offer inexpensive food and shelter to those tourists who wish to get acquainted with this unique village. Khinalug ceased to be isolated from the world, although still remaining a unique place. In the year 2007, Khinalug village was declared a state historico-architectural and ethnographic reserve.
