Oskolou
38°52′21″N 46°53′36″E / 38.87250°N 46.89333°E
Oskolou (اسکلو); also written as Üskülü[1] is a village in Kaleybar County, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 430 in 109 families.[2]
According to locals the village had been occasionally used by the crown princes in Qajar era as summer quarters. There is no record of such claim, but the surviving landscaping in a forest on the west side of the village, known as valiahd qoroghi, provides a strong support to the assertion. The first allusion to Oskolou in the published literature is by Asadollah Mohammadkhanlu,[3] the last headman of Mohammad Khanlu tribe, who had counted some of the inhabitants as the settled member of the tribe.[4]
During 1980s and early 1990s Oskolou was the last village on the west of Kaleybar that had access to a town via paved road. One of the inhabitants, Mashhadi Aziz, had built an inn with minimum accommodation for the travelers to the remote villages, such as Abbasaba and Balan. Then, the road was extended to Asheqlu in the banks of Aras river and Oskolou lost most of its importance. However, Oskolou did not experience the drastic population decline of other villages in Arasbaran region. Instead, since 2005 the wealthy expatriates have returned and constructed modern summer residences.
References
- ↑ Oberling, Pierre. "The Tribes of Qarāca Dāġ: A Brief History." Oriens 17 (1964): 60-95.
- ↑ "Census of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1385 (2006)" (Excel). Islamic Republic of Iran. Archived from the original on 2011-11-11.
- ↑ Iran Almanac and Book of Facts, 1976, Volume 15 - Page 93
- ↑ P. Oberling, “The Tribes of Qarāca Dāġ,” Oriens 17, 1964, p. 69
