Basqal

Kelaghayi are the square silk headscarves worn by Azerbaijani women, dyed and block-printed by hand, and UNESCO inscribed the craft in 2014 naming Sheki and Basqal as its two centres. Basqal is a small stone village on a mountain shelf with cobbled lanes, carved wooden doors and a workshop where the whole sequence is done: silk woven, boiled, dyed with plant colours, then patterned with wooden blocks coated in a resin resist. The colours carry meaning, and which scarf a woman wears signals the occasion.

What you actually see

• The dyeing workshop - vats, drying frames and the sequence from raw silk to finished scarf.
• The wooden blocks - carved stamps used with a resin resist to lay the pattern.
• The finished kelaghayi - scarves in the traditional colours, each read for a different occasion.
• The village - stone houses, cobbled lanes and carved doors on a mountain shelf.

When to go

May to October for the mountain road and the weather. The workshop runs year-round but visits are best arranged ahead in the quieter months. Autumn is the best season in these hills.

Honest expectations

The village is small and a couple of hours covers it. Much of what is sold as kelaghayi elsewhere in the country is printed industrially, and the difference is visible up close, which is a good reason to buy here rather than in a Baku shop. The mountain road is narrow.

Nearby

Lahij is over the ridge, and Ismayilli is half an hour away.