Azernews.Az

By Laman Ismayilova

A photo project "Talysh People's culture" has been presented at Landmark Cinema.

The project was co-organized by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Azerbaijan and Camping Azerbaijan, Trend Life reported.

Dutch ambassador to Azerbaijan Onno Kervers, photographers Arianne Zwart (Netherlands), Giordano Sotiriou (Italy) as well as Rustam Huseynov, Ramina Bocharova, Arif Guluzade, Vagif Mughanli (Azerbaijan) attended the event.

Addressing the event, Onno Kervers pointed out Azerbaijan's traditions of multiculturalism and tolerance. He stressed the contribution of each photographer and thanked all the participants.

The project participants noted the beauty of nature, ancient culture, originality of customs and traditions, hospitality of the Talysh people.

More than a hundred photographs and a short documentary film about the trip were presented to the audience.

The Talysh are an ethnic minority who live in southern Azerbaijan. They speak the Talysh language, one of the Northwestern Iranian languages.

The specific features of the Talysh culture are manifested mainly in folk art, folklore, dances and games. In particular, bijar songs, collective dances and halay songs performed at weddings enriched the Azerbaijani musical art. They were collectively performed by women, often without instrumental accompaniment, with hand movements and snaps.

At weddings and other celebrations, singing was accompanied by ancient percussion instrument lagguti, which is a sort of wooden box hollowed out from inside. Lagguti was played with two sticks. This tool was widely used mainly at weddings and other celebrations of poor families.

The national holidays and calendar rites of the Talysh are closely related to sowing, plowing, harvesting, migrating to summer camps and winter quarters, forage conservation, as well as natural phenomena such as snowstorm, snowfall, rain, flood, etc. The Talysh people made a great contribution to the Azerbaijani culture and history.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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