Cliff House by Maarten Verhees

Kandovan is an amazing village located on the mountainside of Sultan Daghi, Sabalan Mountain, located in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran. Kandovan Village is known for its beautiful rocky architecture that is the result of volcanic activities and hand-carved structures. In fact, the residents carved every room of the cliff houses such as kitchens, halls and even pens from stone to make windows for the rooms and later to decorate them with colorful glasses.

There are two other cliff villages with similar structures in Cappadocia in Turkey and Manitou Cliff Dwellings in the US in Colorado. However, these two cliff villages are not inhabited, leaving Kandovan as the only inhabited cliff village in the world. Maymand Village in Iran, however, is another valley with cave dwellings carved out of the soft rock. There are sharp pyramidal cliffs with the holes on their irregular surfaces in this village, which were created as a result of volcanic eruption in the summer region of the Sahand Mountains. The cliffs have formed beehive cells also known as Karan. Geographical studies show that the ages of the cliffs range from 700 to 1500 years.

The village of Kandovan has a cold and long winter, so this place is considered a safe shelter from hot and cold weather and also from the invasion of enemies. Generally, most of these Karans have two floors and in some cases three and even four floors that are not related to each other from the inside. Rural people have created the house, living range, warehouse and workshop for residential use within these cliffs. Multi-story houses and staircases are generally designed to connect each floor to another. The village has all the facilities of public bath, school, mosque and mill. Mosque Karan is one of the largest Karans in the village.