Dulab

Dulab belongs to the Talysh country, the narrow strip of Caspian lowland and forested mountain on the south-western shore of the sea, near the present Iran–Azerbaijan frontier. Damp air from the Caspian gives the slopes dense Hyrcanian forest, and the lowlands behind the shore were farmland worked by Talysh villagers who spoke their own Iranian language. Hill tracks and the coastal strip tied scattered villages to the larger centres of the region.

In the middle of the eighteenth century a Talysh khanate arose here in the wake of Nader Shah, with its capital at Lankaran, and for decades it was a pawn between Persia and Russia. In 1813 the Treaty of Gulistan ceded many khanates in the region to Russia, and the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828 made the Talysh Khanate Russian for good. The Persian part of Talysh was then divided by Fath Ali Shah into five districts, Karganrud, Asalem, Talesh-Dulab, Shandarmin and Masal, which became known as the Khamsa of Talesh.