Lavash and tandir bread

Lavash is one of the oldest breads. Thinly rolled dough is baked on a saj or in a tandir and can be dried and kept for months. Women usually gather to bake it together — a ritual of conversation and mutual help as much as of cooking.

The tandir is an oven dug into the ground or built of clay; bread is slapped onto its hot inner wall to bake. Tandir bread is the basis of the everyday table across Azerbaijan.

"Flatbread making and sharing culture: Lavash, Katyrma, Jupka, Yufka" was inscribed by UNESCO in 2016 on a joint nomination by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Türkiye, and the craft of the tandir and bread-baking followed in 2024.