Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Guba, the marvelous northern-western region of Azerbaijan, is busy preparing for the Traditional Apple Festival and the first –ever Carpet Festival to be held in the region.

The region will first welcome the fifth Apple Festival scheduled for October 8 at the Heydar Aliyev Park.

Dozens of farmers and gardeners will bring their best apples, including palmet, semerinka, fudji, gizilehmed and others to the festival and define winner in various competitions, such as the biggest apple or the most delicious apple jam.

Guba region may rightly be considered as a motherland of Azerbaijani apples. Smell of juicy and aromatic apple trees have spread into every stone and every house of this beautiful northern region.

Apple is a symbol of Guba, where almost everything is devoted to this juicy fruit. The sculpture dedicated to apple was erected at the entrance to the city. The people of Guba claim that there are more than 40 different varieties of apples there.

Guba’s most famous kind of apple is the “White Apple” (Ag alma). One cannot satisfy his/her hunger trying this yellow, fragrant and red cheeked fruit. Azerbaijanis are so proud of this kind of apple that they wrote a song for it called “Guba’s White Apple”. And it is not surprisingly when you think that one-third of them are involved in the apple harvesting in some capacity.

As annually, the celebration will be attended by about 100 representatives of foreign countries, diplomats, public figures, representatives of art and science

Music and dance groups are preparing interesting shows to demonstrate beautiful samples of the national traditions and music.

In addition, within the framework of the event, the guests will be presented stands reflecting the cuisine and lifestyle of small nations living in the northern region.

Alongside the sweet fruit festival, Guba will also hold the Carpet Festival featuring national carpets and carpet-weaving traditions. Sale of carpets will also be organized within the event.

The festival is expected to play an important role in the economic life of the region.

Guba, located in 168 km from the capital, is a favorite destination for local tourists from Baku for picnics and camping in the forest. While Guba welcomes tourists year-round, the most attractive season to travel to the region is in the autumn, when the smell of its famous sweet apples permeates the air.

The number of tourists visiting the resort centers in Guba has doubled this year. The region recorded more than 50 percent increase in the number of foreign travelers.

Only in August, the number of travelers coming to Guba was 17,300 people and 3,150 of them were citizens of foreign countries. Overall, the number of tourists visiting the region from the beginning of the year is over 100,000.

The region has over 40 resort centers, all of which are trying to keep abreast with international standards on quality. During their stay, tourists have the opportunity to enjoy four exciting routes including the Guba-Khinalig, Guba-Afurja, Guba-Laza and Guba-Khanagah routes.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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