THE LAND OF SUPERCEN TENARIANS

A remote region of Azerbaijan claims to have many extremely long-lived residents. What is their secret, or is it just a myth?

- J. R. Patterson

FRAMED BY HIGH, CRAGGY MOUNTAINS, THE TOWN OF LERIK IN SOUTHERN AZERBAIJAN SITS 16 KILOMETRES NORTHEAST OF THE IRANIAN BORDER.

The area is home to the Talysh people, an ethnic minority in both Azerbaijan and Iran. It's also the heart of a region famed for its longevity. The people here apparently live long lives - some reportedly well past 100.

Shirali Muslimov, supposedly the oldest man to ever have lived, was born in a nearby village. He died in 1973-that much is certain. But Muslimov claimed to have been born in 1805, which would have made him 168, much older than the world's verified oldest person (Jeanne Calment, from France, who died in 1997, at age 122).

During Muslimov's youth, as he told it, the now-extinct Caspian tiger was relatively common in the Talysh mountains, as was bride kidnapping as a rite of courtship: Muslimov 'stole' his first wife in 1833, when he was 28 and she 12.

"I rode into the next village on my horse and grabbed her," he told photojournalist Calman Caspiyev in 1963. "I loved her very much." Caspiyev's articles and photographs made Muslimov famous and helped to connect Lerik to the wider world. After their publication, a road was built to the town, followed by electricity, television and radio.

Today, Lerik resembles many other Azerbaijani towns. A large central square has a statue of Heydar Aliyev, the Republic of Azerbaijan's third president. Taxi drivers in black leather jackets and newsboy caps stand beside their Ladas waiting for fares, mostly to cover the 52 kilometres east to Lankaran, the nearest city of any size, at the Caspian seaside.