Kandovan (Osku)
Interesting facts
- Kandovan sits at roughly 2,200 metres above sea level, high in a valley on the flank of Mount Sahand beside the Kandovan river.
- The cones were carved from non-welded ignimbrite, a grey, acidic ash-flow deposit full of pumice that is soft enough to dig by hand.
- Most karaan have two storeys, with some reaching three or four; the lowest level traditionally housed livestock and the upper rooms served the family.
- The old water channels that eroded the tuff between the cones later became the village streets.
- One explanation of the name links it to kandu, the beehive, and beekeeping has long been part of village life, with mountain honey still a local speciality.
- A cold mineral spring of calcium-carbonate water rises in the village and has a long local reputation as a remedy for kidney ailments.
- Another local tradition says the first settlers were refugees from a ruined nearby village called Hilevar, which was destroyed during the Mongol attacks.
- Kandovan was entered on Iran's list of national heritage in 1997.
- The population has been shrinking: censuses counted 601 residents in 2006 and 450 in 2016.
- The Laleh Kandovan hotel offers rooms cut directly into the rock, making it one of very few cave hotels anywhere in the world.
Why it is worth it
Kandovan is a village that was not so much built as hollowed out. On the lower slopes of Mount Sahand, the extinct volcano that rises south of Tabriz, ancient eruptions laid down a blanket of loosely consolidated ash-flow tuff more than a hundred metres thick. Rain and meltwater have since carved it into a crowd of tapering cones, and the people of Kandovan have dug their homes into them. Locally these rock dwellings are called karaan; the tallest stand 30 to 40 metres high, and a few are linked to their neighbours by small bridges. The comparison everyone reaches for is Cappadocia, but the difference matters: here the cones are still lived in.
Look at the village from across the stream and it reads like a honeycomb set on end. Doors and small windows are cut into the soft stone at several levels, wooden frames and painted shutters sit flush with the rock, and the karaan are laid out along an east–west line with their entrances turned to the south, towards the sun. Paths and stairways climb between them, and in places a conventional house front has been grafted onto a cone, so that masonry and living rock meet in a single wall. The soft, porous material that made the digging possible is also what gives every surface its rounded, weathered look.
No one knows exactly how old the settlement is. Estimates for the cave homes commonly run to around seven centuries, and local tradition holds that people first took shelter in the cones while fleeing the Mongol invasions of the 13th century; another version speaks of nomads who settled here. What is certain is that Kandovan remains a working village of a few hundred people in Osku County of East Azerbaijan province, with livestock, orchards and household life going on inside the rock.
Getting there
Kandovan lies in the foothills of Mount Sahand, about 17 km from the town of Osku and roughly 60 km by road from Tabriz, the usual base for a visit. The nearest airport is Tabriz International Airport (TBZ), about 38 km away in a straight line. The village is reached by road; most visitors come on a day trip from Tabriz by car or taxi.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Kandovan is a village in Sahand Rural District of the Central District in Osku County, East Azerbaijan province, Iran. It is situated in the foothills of Mount Sahand, near the city of Osku.
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