Kala (Azerbaijan)

Kala is located in the eastern part of the Absheron Peninsula . In the west it is adjacent to the village of Bina , in the south - to the village of Turkan . To the north of it is the village of Shuvelyan , and to the east - Dubendi .

Kala in Azerbaijani is a fortress ^[1] . In the pre-revolutionary literature, two names of this settlement were more often cited - Kala (Kala-Karya) ^{[2] [3] [4] [5]} .

In the “Description of Shirvan”, compiled in 1796 by Chancellor I. T. Drenyakin, among the Absheron villages, the village of Nadir Kala is mentioned ^[6] . The Geographical and Statistical Dictionary of the Russian Empire lists “Kal-a” and “Kala” ^[7] .

Kala was one of the villages of the Baku Khanate ^[8] , which in 1806 became part of the Russian Empire . As of 1813, Kala was governed by Mamed Shirin-bek and paid 323 rubles and 40 kopecks to the treasury of the annual tribute to Khan Abaza ^[9] .

In 1846, the Shemakha province was formed and Kala belonged to the Mashtaginsky site of this province ^[10] . After the devastating Shamakhi earthquake in 1859, the provincial institutions were transferred to Baku , and the province was renamed to Baku .

In the 1870s, the official village of Kala was listed among the settlements of the Baku district of the province of the same name, indicating that it was located in the Bina tract ^{[2] [3]} . In the mid-1880s, Kala (Kala-Karja) constitutes a separate Kalinsky rural community of the Mashtaginsky district of this county ^[4] .

The status of an urban-type settlement since 1936. During the years of Soviet Azerbaijan, oilfield equipment factories, electrical repair and mechanical repair plants were located in the village ^[11] .

In 1932, the Azizbekov district of the city of Baku was formed, and in 1936 the Kalinsky Village Council. As of January 1, 1961, this village council consisted of the town of Kala and three more villages (the new Business Court, the old Business Court and the village at the Azizbekovneft Oil Field Administration) ^[12] , and as of January 1, 1977, it consisted of the village of Kala and two villages (Kala II and Handan) ^[13] .

XIX century

In pre-revolutionary literature, the inhabitants of Kala were more often recorded as "Tatars" (that is, Azerbaijanis ) and less often as tats .

According to the statement dated April 30, 1813 (according to the old style), 332 people inhabited Kala ^[9] . According to the “ Caucasian calendar ” for 1856, Kalu (the name in the alphabet of the local language ﻗﻠﻌﻪ) was inhabited by “Tatars” -Shiites (Shiite Azerbaijanis) who spoke “Tatar” (that is , Azerbaijani ) among themselves ^[10] .

The population of Kala according to the Geographical and statistical dictionary of the Russian Empire (1865) is 1,822 inhabitants and 316 households ^[7] . According to the lists of settlements of the Baku province from 1870 , compiled according to the desk description of the province from 1859 to 1864, there were 424 yards and 2,080 residents, consisting of "Tatars" -Shiites (Shiites-Azerbaijanis) ^[2] .

According to the information of 1873, published in the Collection of Information about the Caucasus published in 1879 under the editorship of N. K. Seidlitz , the population of the village increased and amounted to 2,321 inhabitants (456 yards), as well as “Tatars” Shiites (Shiite Azerbaijanis) ^{[ 3]} .

The materials of the family lists for 1886 show in Kala (Kala Karya) 2,510 residents (555 smoke), of which 2,119 tats (1,181 men and 938 women, a total of 464 smoke) and 391 "Tatar" (209 men and 182 women, a total of 91 smoke), which should be understood as Azerbaijanis. The same materials indicate that all residents (both Tat and Azerbaijanis) are Shiite Muslims, and according to the estates among the inhabitants of Kala there were 2,491 peasants on state land (552 smoke) and 19 beks ^[4] .

According to the census of 1897, 2.393 people and all Muslims lived in Kala Kariya (as in the text) ^[14] .

XX century

In one of the statistical sheets attached to the Review of the Baku Province for 1902 and showing the national composition of the indigenous population of the settlements of the Baku Province as of January 1, 1903, 545 smokes and 2,275 inhabitants, “Tatars” (Azerbaijanis) by nationality are indicated on Kala ^[15] .

According to the " Caucasian calendar " for 1904, based on the data of the statistical committees of the Caucasus region, in Kala (Kala-Karya) there were 2,223 inhabitants, mainly Tatians ^[5] . According to the materials of the next "Caucasian calendar" for 1910, 3.014 people lived in Kala in 1908, but now they are designated as "Tatars" (Azerbaijanis) ^[16] .

According to the results of the Azerbaijan Agricultural Census of 1921, Kala was inhabited by 2,800 people and mainly Azerbaijani Turks (that is, Azerbaijanis), and the population consisted of 1,446 men (82 of them literate) and 1,354 women, while 29 were absent ^[17] .

The 1959 census of the USSR showed 2,694 inhabitants in Kala ^[18] . The next census of 1970 recorded a decrease in the population of the village to 2,307 people ^[19] . According to the 1979 census, the population of the village was 2.233 inhabitants ^[20] . The next and last all-Union census of 1989 this time showed an increase in the population of Kala, which amounted to 2,727 people ^[21] .

In Kala, they speak the Azerbaijani language , and for a long time. Even in the “ Caucasian calendar ” for 1856 it was said that the residents spoke “Tatar” (Azerbaijani) among themselves ^[10] . However, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Tat language could also be used here. The Soviet Iranian B.V. Miller , who examined the Tat in 1928, told the Balakhans that the Tat dialect of the Surakhans was closer to the dialects of villages like Kala ^[22] .

The Russian financier and economist Yu. A. Gagemeister , in one of his writings (1850), wrote that considerable quantities of “cotton paper, bred for own use in many places,” were produced in Kala ^[23] . Kala belonged to one of the centers of the Tat carpet-making in the region of the Absheron peninsula ^[24] .

Military Airfield

5 km south-east of the village is the military airport of the same name.

Rail Transport

January 1, 1924 Baku Committee of the AKP (b) decided to conduct a narrow gauge railway in Kala ^[25] , along which workers, artisans, equipment, etc., were transported to the place of work.

For the first time in the Soviet Union, the railway line was electrified in 1926 in Azerbaijan (Baku-Sabunchi-Surahani line) ^[26] . This was followed by further electrification of the Azerbaijan railway. In 1948, the electrified section of the Surahani-Kala railway was put into operation, with a length of 13.6 km, and the next year, the electrified sections of Kala - Buzovna (13.8 km) and Kala - the island of Artyom (30.20 km) ^{[27 ]} .

Car Post

In July 2013, a road was opened that runs from Kala to the 13th km of the Zykh Circle Highway - Heydar Aliyev International Airport ^[28] , and on April 23, 2019 - the Mardakyan – Kala highway ^[29] .