History
Historic Şəki was originally higher up the valley around the site now occupied by Kiş. That town was ruined by floods in 1716 but rebuilt by rebellious Khan Haci Çələbi, who set up a defiantly independent khanate there in the 1740s. He built a second fortress at Nukha (today’s Şəki). When the original Şəki was obliterated a second time by more catastrophic floods and mudflows in 1772, Nukha became the new royal capital.
The khanate was ceded to Russia in 1805 but Nukha continued to flourish as a silk-weaving town and an important traders’ junction where the caravan route between Baku and Tbilisi met the cross-mountain branch route to Derbent in Dagestan. At its peak there were five working caravanserais here. Nukha was renamed Şəki in the 1960s.
Şәki
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