In well-kept Armenian village Aylis there are many schools and libraries, and people there resemble the French
Collection of Azerichild.info site replenished by another publicistic work written in early 20th century called “Journey of Mozalan Beck”. It’s from journal of “Molla Nasreddin” of 1909 in which the author Gurbanli Sharifov shares his impressions after visiting the Armenian village Aylis (Agulis) and compares it with the Muslim (Azerbaijani) Ordubad city.
It is noteworthy that at the time when this story was going to be printed, the magazine, founded by Jalil Mamedkulizade in 1906 and censored by his Armenian colleagues was fully under the control of young writers, editors and censors – Transcaucasian Tatars.
"It seems that even fools would be stupefied. First of all I want to note that the village was like a well-kept area of Tbilisi. Beautiful mansions, clean streets, many large and beautiful bridges, a lot of schools, libraries, reading rooms and buildings with an amazing educational equipment and decorations. I swear by Allah, I was petrified.
And people are not recognizable as if they had just arrived from France, their clothes, their behavior, impeccable purity (speaking of purity, I mean appearance of the people do not think of something else.) I was truly amazed.
Returning from Aylis to Ordubad I saw that in one of the houses they again read a prayer and Muslims gathered there are again crying.
And I really wanted to ask them my dears, why are you crying? What is wrong with you again? Or have you already realized that our neighbors, who are armed with enlightenment, will come here, will seize all of your property, and will turn you all in their own servants?
And let no one say that it is not like that. If you pay a little attention to the history of world culture, you will realize that in the end it will be so.”
The site Azerichild.info publishes translations of literature from Azerbaijani for children and educational use.