This post will be about our visit to Lahic Village. Lahic is a small village on the southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus Mountains. The population is about 850 people. It's one of the oldest settlements in Azerbaijan. Lahic gained a reputation as a center of artisans and craftsmanship some 500 years ago. It has carpet weavers, tanners, blacksmiths, engravers, painters, shoemakers, sock weavers, carpenters, and jewelers who all live and work here. But the coppersmiths and metal workers are the ones that really rose to prominence in Lahic.

Lahic is the sounds of tiny hammers beating metal as it skips across the cobbled streets and bounces off the hills. Artisans and tinkerers form the Lahic copper orchestra. Lahic has been famous for this since the Middle Ages in the Caucasus. It's also known as a center for crafts, shopping, and the production of cold steel and copper utensils, decorated with engraved patterns. Today, it's a tourist destination as well.

I must say, however, that as much as I enjoyed our visit to Lahic, our drive up the mountain to get there was probably the most exciting part of the whole side-trip excursion. We had to leave our bus for small, four-wheel vehicles. We were in an extremely thick fog and then it started to rain. As we drove up the canyon into the mountain, it rained harder and then began to hail. Visibility was close to zero. Our driver, a Lahic resident, drove like we were in a road race. I had some doubts about our ability to get there, but we made it.

I will start the photos with two photos that I took on our way back down the mountain. Why? Because nothing was visible on our way up the mountain. You can see the road that we traveled in the first two photos. Now add thick fog, rain, hail and a NASCAR driver to it.

And upon arriving in Lahic, in front of the people's house that we were going to visit, you can see the water running down the street. We got out of the cars and stepped into three or four inches of fast running water.

Next is the house of the people that we were in Lahic to visit. We had to take off our wet shoes and socks to enter the house.

It was quite a nice house and we were here to have lunch with them, followed by time with the man's coppersmithing operation.

The woman above prepared our lunch. It was somewhat unusual and really good. We had soup which was perfect for our foggy and rainy day. The soup was potatoes, mint, eggs, and plums. The combination might sound odd, but I assure you, the soup was delicious!

Our main course was Plov which was beef, apricots, and raisins over jasmine rice. It was also delicious.