Quba is the capital of northern Azerbaijan, a quiet town at the foot of the Greater Caucasus, surrounded by apple orchards and famous for centuries for its hand-woven carpets, some of the most prized in the country. It is a comfortable, easy-to-reach base from Baku for heading into the northern mountains, with their spectacular canyons and remote villages, such as lofty Khinalug. But what makes Quba truly unique lies right opposite, on the other side of the river.
There, across the bridge over the Gudialchay, is Krasnaya Sloboda (Qırmızı Qəsəbə, the 'red village'), considered one of the last villages in the world inhabited exclusively by Mountain Jews, a Jewish community of Persian origin settled in the Caucasus for centuries. With its red-roofed houses, its synagogues and its own way of life, it is an extraordinary testament to coexistence: it was founded in the 18th century under the protection of the khan of Quba, who offered the Jews a safe refuge from persecution, and it has survived to this day.
This guide helps you plan Quba in a practical way: what to see in the town and in Krasnaya Sloboda, how to buy quality carpets, how to get there from Baku, how to do the mountain trip to Khinalug, and where to sleep and eat. It is a destination of history, craftsmanship, nature and coexistence, one of the most surprising and human sides of Azerbaijan, a stone's throw from the peaks of the Greater Caucasus.
In the 18th century Quba was the capital of a powerful khanate, one of the many states into which Azerbaijani territory split after the weakening of the Persian Empire. Under Fatali Khan (son of Huseynali Khan), the Quba Khanate became one of the strongest in the north, extending its rule over much of the region. It was a khan of Quba, Huseynali, who in the mid-18th century gave the Mountain Jews permission to settle safely across the river, in what would become Krasnaya Sloboda, a gesture of tolerance that gave rise to this unique community. The region was always renowned for its carpets (Quba types, such as Chichi or Pirabadil, are famous in the carpet world) and for its apples. In the 19th century it passed to the Russian Empire, and later became part of Soviet and then independent Azerbaijan. That history, from the khanates to Jewish coexistence and the carpets, is told on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The north of Azerbaijan's Greater Caucasus, from the apple orchards and hand-woven carpets of Quba to the highest stone villages in the Caucasus, such as Khinalug, with its own language and its World Heritage cultural landscape.
Read the history of The north: Quba and Khinalug →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The modern history of Quba is shaped by its time as the capital of a khanate in the 18th century. To understand it, you need to remember the context: for centuries, present-day Azerbaijan had been within the orbit of the Persian Empire, but when that empire fell into crisis in the mid-18th century, after the assassination of Nader Shah in 1747, the territory broke up into around twenty small states called khanates, each ruled by a khan. Quba was one of them, and it became one of the most powerful in the north.
The key figure was Fatali Khan (son of Khan Huseynali), who ruled the Quba Khanate in the second half of the 18th century and turned it into a regional power. Through alliances, wars and shrewd politics, Fatali Khan extended Quba's rule over much of north-eastern Azerbaijan, including important strongholds on the Caspian coast, and even dreamt of uniting several neighbouring khanates under his command. Under his rule, Quba enjoyed its moment of greatest splendour and political ambition as one of the main powers in the region.
Like all the khanates, however, Quba was caught between larger powers: the weakened but still present Persian Empire, and the growing Russian Empire advancing from the north. After Fatali Khan's death, the khanate lost strength, and in the early 19th century, like the rest of the khanates north of the Aras River, it came under the control of the Russian Empire, which abolished it as an independent entity. The golden age of the khans of Quba was over, but it left the city as the great historic centre of northern Azerbaijan.
The most unusual and beautiful chapter in Quba's history is that of the Mountain Jews and the founding of Krasnaya Sloboda. The Mountain Jews are an ancient Jewish community of Persian origin, settled in the eastern Caucasus for many centuries. They speak their own language of Iranian roots, Juhuri or Judeo-Tat, and kept their faith and traditions for generations in this region where peoples and religions meet.
In the mid-18th century, in the days of the khanate, a khan of Quba (according to tradition, Huseynali Khan, around 1742) offered the Mountain Jews a safe place to live across the Gudialchay River, opposite the city, to protect them from the persecution and threats they faced elsewhere. This was the origin of the settlement that would come to be known as Krasnaya Sloboda (the 'red village') or Qırmızı Qəsəbə. Under the khans' protection, the community was able to prosper and grow in peace, a rare example of tolerance for the time.
Over the following centuries, and especially during the Baku oil boom of the late 19th century, many Mountain Jews from Quba grew wealthy through trade and paid for the building of synagogues (the village came to have more than ten) and fine houses. Krasnaya Sloboda thus became a case unique in the world: an entire village, prosperous and with centuries of continuity, inhabited exclusively by Mountain Jews, a living testimony to coexistence that has survived to this day and makes Quba an exceptional place.
In the early 19th century, after the wars between the Russian Empire and Persia and the treaties of Gulistan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828), the Quba Khanate, like all those north of the Aras, was absorbed into the Russian Empire. The city became an administrative centre of the empire, and the region went on living from its agriculture (its famous apples and orchards), its carpets and trade, with its characteristic mix of peoples: Azerbaijanis, Mountain Jews, Tats, Lezgins and other Caucasian communities.
The most tragic period came with the collapse of the Russian Empire. During the chaotic and violent year of 1918, amid the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the inter-ethnic fighting and the civil war that ravaged the Caucasus, the Quba region was the scene of massacres of civilians. In that context of widespread violence, thousands of people in the area, mostly Muslims (Azerbaijanis) but also members of other communities, were killed by armed forces of the time. It is one of the darkest episodes in the region's history.
In 2007, construction work in Quba uncovered a large mass grave holding the remains of thousands of victims of those events, which led to the building of a memorial (the Quba Genocide Memorial Complex) to honour their memory and document what happened. Those terrible years, with the brief interlude of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920), ended with the country's incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1920. The tragedy of 1918 is part of Quba's historical memory and of the complex and often painful past of the Caucasus in the 20th century.
During the Soviet era and after Azerbaijan's independence in 1991, Quba consolidated its role as the main centre of the country's north, living from its agriculture, its carpets and, increasingly, tourism. The region is still famous for its apples and orchards, which cover the valleys at the foot of the Greater Caucasus, and for its carpet-weaving tradition: carpets of the Quba school, with characteristic types such as Chichi and Pirabadil, remain among the most prized in the art of Azerbaijani carpet weaving, which is recognised by UNESCO.
The Mountain Jewish community of Krasnaya Sloboda has endured, although many families emigrated to Israel, the United States and other countries in the 20th and 21st centuries. Many of those who left keep strong ties with the village, fund the upkeep of the synagogues and houses, and come back in summer, so Krasnaya Sloboda is still alive and is today a symbol of the tolerance and diversity that Azerbaijan claims as part of its identity. The Mountain Jews museum, opened in recent years, honours that unique history.
In recent decades, Quba has also become the gateway to mountain tourism in the north: from here you go up to the remote and spectacular village of Khinalug, recognised by UNESCO for its cultural landscape of transhumance, and nearby is the large Shahdag ski and mountain resort. So the old capital of the khans today combines its history (the khanates, Jewish coexistence, carpets, the memory of 1918) with the grandeur of the Greater Caucasus, and it is one of the most complete, human and surprising visits Azerbaijan offers outside the capital.
