Digital museum
Threads of Memory
The Mountain Jews — Juhuro — lived in the Caucasus for centuries and today live all over the world. This museum keeps their history, language, customs and family memory.
Who they are
A people of the Caucasus
Mountain Jews call themselves Juhuro, and their language Juhuri — an Iranian language of the south-western group, spoken for centuries in the villages of Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan.
A language in three alphabets
In the space of one century Juhuri was written in Hebrew letters, then Latin, then Cyrillic. Few languages have changed script so often.
On the Silk Road crossroads
Living between the mountains and the Caspian, the community spoke with neighbours in Tat, Azeri, Kumyk and Russian, and kept Juhuri at home.
Endangered, not lost
UNESCO lists Juhuri among endangered languages. Every recorded voice and every written story makes a difference.
Timeline
History in dates
From ancient migration to the present day. Where a date rests on written evidence, the source is named.
Antiquity
Ancestors of the Mountain Jews came to the Caucasus from Persia in ancient times and settled in the villages of Dagestan and Shirvan.
Middle Ages
Communities lived among the mountain peoples, spoke Juhuri, kept Jewish customs and trades: carpet weaving, jewellery, trade.
1742
The settlement of Krasnaya Sloboda (Qırmızı Qəsəbə) was founded across the river from Quba — the main centre of Jewish life in Azerbaijan.
1888
Ilya Anisimov published “The Caucasian Mountain Jews”, the first systematic ethnographic study of the community.
Early 20th century
Schools opened, books and newspapers appeared in Juhuri, and Jewish theatre companies began to perform in the local language.
The 1990s
After the collapse of the Soviet Union most families emigrated to Israel, Moscow, the USA and Europe — the ancestral villages grew empty.
Today
Juhuri is listed as an endangered language. Museums, community foundations and projects like this one collect what can still be recorded.
Language
A few words of Juhuri
Spelling here is a simplified Cyrillic transliteration, as the language is written today.
жугьур
juhur
a Mountain Jew (self-name)
джуури
juhuri
the Juhuri language
ватан
vatan
homeland
дил
dil
heart
нон
non
bread
хинкал
hinkal
dumplings, the signature dish
Шаббат
Shabbat
the Sabbath
Хуш омори!
Khush omori!
Welcome!
The museum dictionary now holds 2,280 words with search, a letter index and a word trainer.
Customs at home
How the family lived
Three things the community considered sacred: bread on the table, a guest in the house, and the memory of the dead.
A wedding
Betrothal was arranged by the families, the bride was veiled, and the celebration lasted days, with songs in Juhuri, a dowry of carpets and silver, and dishes that took a whole day to prepare.
Hospitality
A guest entered the courtyard to the greeting “Khush omori!” — welcome. Refusing bread and salt was impossible: it meant refusing the house itself.
Cuisine
Hinkal — thick dumplings in broth with garlic sauce — is the signature dish. Bozbash, chudu, dolma and sweet shirin-plov followed on festive days.
Holidays
Shabbat was kept strictly: candles on Friday evening, a table set in advance, work set aside until the stars came out.
Names and surnames
Most surnames grew out of a father's or grandfather's name, a trade, or the village the family came from.
Memory of the dead
Gravestones carry the name and the father's name, often in Hebrew letters; visiting the cemetery before holidays is still a family duty.
Inside the museum
All sections
The main content is in Russian; the sections below are the way in. Titles are shown in English for orientation.
History
From ancient legends of migration to Krasnaya Sloboda, the 1888 study and the great emigration of the 1990s.
Open →The Juhuri language
An Iranian language of the Caucasus with three alphabets in one century, a dictionary and a word trainer.
Open →Customs and culture
Weddings, symbols, poetry — and the sayings that held families together.
Open →Dress and jewellery
Cherkeska coats, velvet and gold embroidery, silver belts, hamsa pendants and carpets.
Open →Cuisine
Hinkal, bozbash, chudu and sweet shirin-plov — recipes step by step.
Open →Holidays
Twelve holidays, plus today's Hebrew date and candle-lighting times by city.
Open →People and patrons
Keepers of memory, famous names, and where Mountain-Jewish surnames come from.
Open →Our names
What the names mean and how they sound in Juhuri.
Open →Map of settlement
From Derbent and Quba to Haifa, Moscow and New York.
Open →Memory and family
Elders' stories, the memory wall, your family tree and recording voices.
Open →Archive and photographs
28 authentic photographs from open archives, with credits, and a library.
Open →Games
Riddles, proverbs, anagrams, a word search and true-or-false about the community.
Open →Dictionary of 2,280 words
The Juhuri–Russian dictionary transferred to the museum: search by word or browse by letter.
Open →How to read Juhuri
Hebrew script, Latin, Cyrillic — and the signs җ, ҹ, ҝ, ү, ә, һ, ј explained.
Open →Museum library
21 books: dictionaries, schoolbooks, the 800-page history monograph, poetry and memoirs.
Open →Wisdom of the people
64 proverbs in Juhuri with Russian translation, from the collection “The Wisdom of the People”.
Open →Cemetery of Quba
The necropolis of Krasnaya Sloboda: 1,194 tombstones of 1806–2024 and the Matzevalog catalogue.
Open →Dishes of the recipe book
21 dishes of Mountain-Jewish cuisine with ingredients, from the community cookbook.
Open →For children
Five games: word pairs, counting, a dish to assemble, guess-the-word and a carpet to colour.
Open →Authors and researchers
Lexicographers, poets, translators and historians behind the books of the museum.
Open →Record a memory
A questionnaire of 30 questions for recording an elder’s story.
Open →Help keep the memory
Send family photographs, documents or a story — in any language. We translate and keep them for the generations to come. If you have an old recording of a song, a prayer or a grandparent's voice, it is the most valuable thing you can share.
Photographs come from open archives (Wikimedia Commons) and are credited under each image. Translations of poetry and song texts are the museum's own stylisations of oral tradition.