Welcome Lerik The Centenarians of Azerbaijan's Lerik Region Lerik is a town and rayon located near the Iranian border in southern Azerbaijan, between tall mountains and the agricultural plain. Travel You can visit the local history museum and have a look at the Karabakh war memorial, located between of the parade ground and the modest city hall. Anyway, better than any human creation is the superb landscape around the town, with the Talysh mountains in the horizon. Lerik is also a good starting point for hiking. You can reach Lerik easily from Lankaran using the A323 road. It is a very scenic route along the Lankaran river and the Chirkan Nature Reserve. Buses run regularly to Lankaran and Baku. (220 km south of Baku) People Lerik is mainly famous for the longevity of some of its citizens. It it known for myths of human longevity; a man named Shirali Baba Muslimov, born in the village of Barzavu, who was reported by the Guinness Book of Records to have been aged 168 when he died, and was believed to have lived between 1805 and 1973.[1] The population of the Lerik rayon is mostly Talysh (Indo-Iranian group - population is spread across both sides of the border). Azerbaijan's Legendary Centenarian Shirali Muslimov Shirali credits his longevity to hard work. Here he was supposedly over 160-years-old. All photos were taken in 1963 or later. Azerbaijan is known for its centenarians, who often live in mountainous regions. Here, in our issue dedicated to youth, we thought it would be interesting to feature the Azerbaijani who gained the reputation during the Soviet period of being "The Oldest Inhabitant of the Planet." The first time photojournalist Calman Caspiyev met "Shirali Baba," or Grandfather Shirali as he was affectionately called, the old man was more than seven times Calman's age. The young reporter for the Tass News Agency was 22-years-old, and Shirali claimed to be 158-years-old. That was in 1963. Old faded papers identified Shirali as having been born in 1805. Although Azerbaijani scientists these days are skeptical about such longevity, it seems that Shirali clearly had passed his 100th birthday years earlier. No one knows for sure. Calman believes Shirali's documents but shrugs, "What's the difference between 20 or 30 years when you're that old!" It's clear that Shirali knew his descendants down to the 5th generation. A newspaper article in the mid-1960s commented that he was having difficulty remembering the names of his 200 grand- and great-grand-children. But when Calman made that first trip down to the Larik region close to the Iranian border to find Shirali, he really wasn't sure what to expect. Traveling by horseback, he finally found Shirali in the mountains in the Talysh-speaking village of Barzavu. It would be Calman's articles and photos that would eventually make the centenarian known all over the world and which would change the life of Shirali and his village. Centenarians were not uncommon in that region, which is 2,000 meters above sea level. In fact, you can still find some living there today. Hard Work Shirali credited his longevity to an active life and hard work. When he died at the age of 168 on September 4, 1973, his obituary read that "he had tended the sheep of the rich people for the first hundred years of his life." Afterwards, he was involved in collective farming on the "kolhoz." Calman took photos of him riding his horse and even chopping wood when he was supposedly over 160-years-old. The family lived in poverty, eating only what they could produce, which meant, primarily, a diet of yogurt, fruits and vegetables. There were no food markets. But there was an abundant supply of fresh spring water that tasted incredibly good, recalls Calman. Once he asked Shirali, "Which was better, pre-Revolutionary times or today?" Given the Soviet regime under which they lived, the question left Shirali little choice but to say he preferred the present. Calman pressed him for the reason and Shirali replied, "Well, before, I used to have 100-150 sheep, but one day a man on horseback came up the mountain swinging his sword and demanded half of them. He told me that half of them belonged to the czar. And so he left me the remaining half. Today it's better because nobody comes and takes anything from me." After Calman had finished writing down his comments, Shirali added, "And do you know why they don't come anymore? I have nothing left for them to take!" After Calman's story and photos were published, Shirali gained international attention. A road was built up to the village. Electricity followed and with it, radios and television. Shirali was given a pension which made him feel very rich. He wasn't used to having money. Foreigners came to visit him, and he was constantly receiving gifts. In 1964, the government honored him with a big party for his 156th birthday. Government officials came to the celebration, and a documentary film was made which Calman thinks must still exist in the Leningrad Documentary Studio. Calman brought Shirali to Baku a few years later. It was the old man's first trip to the city. He was around 160-years-old at the time. But riding in the car made him claustrophobic and nauseous. The fumes seemed to bother him as well. Calman remembers him begging, "Give me my horse. Take me back to Barzavu and give me my horse." Of course, Soviet officials used the phenomenon of longevity to prove the superiority of the communist system over capitalism. And though there were centenarians living in other regions of the Soviet Union, especially mountainous ones, Azerbaijan had more than its share of these long-lived people. Shirali came to be known as "The Oldest Inhabitant of the Planet" and lived to the ripe old age of 168. The Soviets never claimed that anyone surpassed him. For more about the man alleged to have live the longest in the Soviet Union, read more about Shirali Muslimov. The Centenarians of Azerbaijan's Lerik Region Living Past 100 - "No Big Deal" in this Village LERIK, Azerbaijan-Something appears to be keeping people in this breathtaking mountain village alive longer than anywhere else on Earth. It could be the clean water, the bracing air or a life of back-breaking labor. It might be luck, and it's probably genetics. But it isn't yogurt. Despite well-known American commercials in which the people of this Caucasus mountain region were said to attain their legendary longevity by eating yogurt, the stuff is not very popular here. "I never eat it," Mirzahan Movlamov said dismissively. "Never." In his case, never is a long time. At 121, Movlamov is the oldest man in a village famous for centenarians and, according to his birth documents, one of the oldest people in the world. He lives in a bare room with his third wife (nearly half a century younger than he is) and is usually surrounded by dozens of children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. This place may be as close on Earth as it gets to Shangri-La-the mythical land where people seem to live forever-but it certainly is bizarre. There are scores of astonishingly old people living here, on a mountain ridge just a few miles from the Iranian border. For a while the Guinness Book of World Records recognized somebody from a village nearby, Shirali Muslimov, as the oldest man who ever lived. Born in 1805, he died 25 years ago, reportedly at the age of 168. People here don't really have family trees; they have family forests. Movlamov, for instance, has a 41-year-old son (conceived when he was 80 and when his current wife was 36), and he has an 84-year-old grandson, who descended from Movlamov's first wife. In between, there are scores of others, some children from his most recent marriage who are decades younger than grandchildren he has from his first marriage. He has one son, a grandson and a great-granddaughter all born within two years of one another. His first wife was his true love. They were married in 1905, when he was 28 and she was 12. "I stole her," he said, matter-of-factly, speaking in a rare mountain dialect [Talysh], which was then translated into Azeri by one grandson and from that into Russian by another. "I rode into the next village on my horse and grabbed her. I was in the czar's cavalry at the time. I loved her very much." He and his first wife were happily married until she died in 1954-at the age of 61, which passes for adolescence in these parts. He says she never mentioned his abrupt courtship-the theft of young women being the traditional way mountain men obtained their brides. For the millions of Americans obsessed with gurus, diet doctors, spiritualists and New Age herbalists who promise to tell them how to live forever, a trip to this part of the world might seem appealing. But it isn't likely to answer their questions. It's hard to say why people here-poor, poorly served by medicine and mostly ignorant-live a long life. They don't eat much, and they work like beasts. Vegetables, fruit and sour cheeses are dietary staples. The water 300 miles south of Baku is as clear as the azure skies. The crisp mountain air seems good enough to eat. Still, when Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union, doctors descended on the place and took a bunch of blood tests. They found nothing conclusive, and most researchers tend to attribute longevity here to a combination of clean, stress-free living and genes that are programmed to last.