Qakh

Qakh lies beneath the wooded southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus, where the Kurmuk River leaves the mountains for the Alazani plain. Nearby Ilisu was the seat of a sultanate whose rulers governed a district between the mountains and the lowlands. The stone tower of Sumuq Qala, on the left bank of the river near Ilisu, recalls the fortified residences and local powers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The sultans of Ilisu dealt with the Safavid rulers and neighbouring communities while retaining local authority. In 1803 an agreement brought Ilisu and the Jar-Balakan communities under Russian protection. Their position on the mountain frontier continued to make the district important in the struggles that followed Russia's expansion into the South Caucasus.