Slavyanka

Slavyanka is a village in the Gədəbəy District of western Azerbaijan, in the Lesser Caucasus mountains. It is the second-most-populous municipality in the district after the town of Gədəbəy itself, with roughly 3,705 residents across the village of Slavyanka and the neighbouring village of Maarif, and it retains an ethnically Russian population descended from Molokan and Doukhobor settlers.

The village was founded in 1844 by Doukhobors — a pacifist Christian dissenter sect — who were resettled to Transcaucasia by Tsar Nicholas I from the Molochna River area of what is now Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Ukraine. It was named after the town of Slavyansk (in present-day Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine), the settlers' ancestral home. When the Russian painter Vasily Vereshchagin visited in 1863, he recorded around 205 houses and some 600 male residents. Slavyanka is historically significant within Doukhobor history: it was one of three village sites chosen for the "Burning of the Arms," a mass protest in 1895 in which Doukhobors publicly destroyed their weapons in defiance of conscription and the loyalty oath demanded by Czarist authorities. The reprisals that followed led to exile for many residents, and a large share of the community subsequently emigrated to Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1899. The village was also the birthplace, on 29 June 1859, of Peter Vasilievich Verigin, an influential Doukhobor leader, whose son Peter Petrovich Verigin was likewise a prominent figure in the movement.

By Plane

Ganja International Airport (KVD IATA) is the nearest airport, about 100 km north.

By Car / Road

A paved road runs from Ağamalı via Slavyanka to the district centre, Gədəbəy; Gədəbəy in turn connects by road to Ganja.

Small village, walkable.

• The village itself — one of Azerbaijan's few remaining Doukhobor/Molokan Russian settlements, founded in 1844 and linked to major events in Doukhobor history including the 1895 "Burning of the Arms" protest.

• Mountain scenery of the surrounding Lesser Caucasus.

• Hiking in the surrounding hills and forests.

• Gadabay — district centre with more services and historic monuments.
• Ganja (100 km north) — major city with full amenities.