Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist, a small country (33,200 sq. mi.) lying south of the eastern half of the Caucasus range, being little more than the dry valley of the lower Kura river. The people, numbering over 3,000,000, are related to the Turks. In a climate similar to that of Egypt they raise grapes, olives, figs, vegetables, lemons, tangerines, bamboo, eucalyptus and fine, long-fibre cotton for Soviet mills. In the spring they pasture horses, cattle and sheep in the valley and in the uplands in the summer.
The chief business of Azerbaijan Republic is oil, and its center is Baku, a modern city of 800,000. The oil is now drawn by machinery and much of it comes from fields and layers not used before the revolution, and from under the waters of the Caspian. It is refined at Baku and shipped up the Volga to Soviet markets or sent to Batum for export over the Black Sea. The present oil output is twice the pre-war maximum (now 22,000,000 metric tons annually).
The pre-revolutionary society of Azerbaijan was quite patriarchal, required the women to wear heavy black veils and to labor in half-slavery. Now at least 5,000 women attend the university and a few have reached the top in politics and business. The Azerbaijan language was permitted by the tsars but the annual number of books printed then was not 1/30th of the present number (6,000,000).
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