Nij (also known as Nidzh; ;

Udi Udi may refer to: Places * Udi, Enugu, a local government areas and city in Nigeria * Udi Hills, Enugu State, Nigeria * Udi, a place in the Etawah district of Uttar Pradesh, India People Given name * Udi Aloni (born 1959), Israeli-American film ...

: ''НыъжӀ'' or ''НиъжӀ'') is a town in the

Qabala District Qabala District () is one of the 66 Administrative divisions of Azerbaijan, districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the north of the country in the Shaki-Zagatala Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Oghuz District, Oghuz ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

. Located 40 kilometers south-west of the city of

Qabala Qabala () is a city and the administrative centre of the Qabala District of Azerbaijan. The municipality consists of the city of Gabala and the village of Küsnət, Qabala, Küsnat. Before the city was known as Kutkashen, but after the Republic o ...

, Nij is one of the world's few settlements of

Udi people Udis (endonym ''Udi'' or ''Uti'') are a native people of the Caucasus that live mainly in Russia and Azerbaijan, with smaller populations in Georgia (country), Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and other countries. Their total number is abou ...

. It has a population of 5,744.

History

The Caucasian Albanian-Udi Apostolic Autocephalous Church is located in Nij. The first Udi school and subsequently a Russian rural school were opened in Nij in 1854. From 1931 to 1933, Udis received education in their own language; in 1937 they began to receive education in the

Azerbaijani language Azerbaijani ( ; , , ) or Azeri ( ), also referred to as Azerbaijani Turkic or Azerbaijani Turkish (, , ), is a Turkic languages, Turkic language from the Oghuz languages, Oghuz sub-branch. It is spoken primarily by the Azerbaijanis, Azerbaij ...

. Ethnic Udis in Nij today are involved in a variety of vocations, which include farming, cattle breeding, rice cultivation,

sericulture Sericulture, or silk farming, is the cultivation of silkworms to produce silk. Although there are several commercial species of silkworms, the caterpillar of the Bombyx mori, domestic silkmoth is the most widely used and intensively studied silkwo ...

, horticulture, poultry farming, craftsmanship and viticulture.

Alexandre Dumas Alexandre Dumas (born Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, 24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870), also known as Alexandre Dumas , was a French novelist and playwright. His works have been translated into many languages and he is one of the mos ...

''père'', the French writer, in his book ''Voyage to the Caucasus'' (1859), provides detailed information about the specific economic activities, language and culture of Nij.

Controversy

In 2004, Church of Saint Elisæus in Nij was renovated as part of a project financed by Norwegian Humanitarian Enterprise. The destruction of Armenian inscriptions associated with the church during the renovations prompted a protest by Norway's ambassador to Azerbaijan,

Steinar Gil Steinar Gil (born 27 January 1943) is a Norwegian philologist and diplomat. Career He was born in Oslo, and worked at the University of Oslo from 1972 to 1980. He started working for the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1984, being pro ...

. In May 2018, Foreign Minister of Armenia submitted a report to the

UN General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; , AGNU or AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 79th session, its powers, ...

claiming that the erasing of the Armenian inscriptions at Nij was evidence that "all restoration work of Christian architectural monuments in Azerbaijan was carried out in such a way as to destroy the traces of Armenian architecture, as well as the Armenian inscriptions".Letter dated 18 May 2018 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Armenia to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, page 5/21. https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/A/72/876

Gallery

File:Nic qəsəbəsi Yalaşlı məhəllə Cümə Məscidi.JPG, Mosque in Nij File:Nij EliseyTsilinChurch 004 3534.jpg, Tsilin Church File:Müqəddəs Məryəm Ana Bulun Kilsəsi.jpg, Bulun Church File:Jotati Church.jpg, Church of Saint Elisæus

References

* {{Qabala District Populated places in Qabala District Elizavetpol Governorate