When the sun shines on Vagif Mausoleum, and the red-tiled houses glow in the shade of pear trees, Shusha feels like a sacred treasure chest filled with secrets, its defensive walls absorbing the echoes of its departed. Widely regarded as the cultural capital of Azerbaijan, the city has captured the hearts and imaginations of artists and has provided fertile ground for inspiration. The city’s mythical status peaked in Jeyhun Mirzayev’s "The Squall," which lit up Azerbaijani movie screens in 1993. Yet the city has always stood alone, perched high in the mountains, gazing to the horizon and hospitable Shusha character, one of merriment, art and cosmopolitanism.

Shusha was founded by Panah Ali Khan in 1750 as a new capital for the newly established Karabakh Khanate. The city is protected by sheer cliffs on three sides and only one steep road leading through the gates of what was once the fortress of the Karabakh Khans. After Shusha was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1822, it quickly began attracting carpet weavers, horse breeders, merchants and winemakers. By the 19th century, Shusha was a major center for silk production in the South Caucasus.

Increasingly multicultural, the city became gentrified during the 1830s; Azerbaijanis settled in the eastern lower quarters, while Armenians lived in the comparatively new western upper quarters of the town. Shusha’s strategic location in Karabakh played to the city’s advantage: Shusha was a safe haven for travelers fleeing the tyranny of other states and fiefdoms. Merchants stayed in caravanserais, bringing gold, salt, cotton and horses paid for in all currencies.

While not exactly a melting pot, Shusha was its own kind of cultural soup, attracting talented poets and musicians from across the region. This unique concoction created its own cultural phenomenon, the Shusha majlis — literary circles with live Mugham music and food. Banquet culture is as engrained in Shusha’s identity as its wide cobbled streets, large stone mansions and foggy mountains. Azerbaijani architects built its notable landmarks, with the Shusha-born Karbalayi Safikhan Karabakhi designing Yukhari Govhar Agha Mosque and the Shirin Su bathhouse. The streets, signposted in both Russian and Azerbaijani, were tangy with the smell of turmeric, cinnamon and mint from Shusha’s bustling markets.

Blessed with warm summers and an exuberant reputation, the city became a magnet for Azerbaijani literary and musical figures keen to escape the heat of Baku. Alexandre Dumas, while rewriting the first chapters of Adventures in the Caucasus, attended a party in Shusha in 1858, playing chess with Khurshidbanu Natavan, the daughter of the last ruler of the Karabakh khanate and poetess. After losing to her at chess, Dumas received a beaded tobacco pouch, personally embroidered by the poetess. The Russian painter Vasily Vereshchagin, born in 1842 and author of "The Apotheosis of War" (1871), wrote in one of his memoirs: "The best horses I have ever seen in my life belonged to the Jafar Quli Khan’s stable in Shusha. I have never seen such horses anywhere."

But it wasn’t all glee and glamour. Shusha has endured much in its short history, from invasions and atrocious pogroms — to the mayhem of communism and, later, a series of wars between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The wars in the South Caucasus, which erupted in the 20th century, destroyed much of Shusha’s intellectual life.

Today, if you walk to the Qurdlar quarter, you will see a large house with several windows and an arch-shaped entrance. In 1897, Bülbül, a prominent opera tenor born in Shusha, spent his childhood years here and got acquainted with music. The house suffered heavy damage during the capture of Shusha by Armenian forces in 1992. A statue of the singer has been vandalized several times during the Karabakh wars. As the building deteriorates, he is remembered fondly across the street at the bakery Ipek Yolu, where crispy baklava and half-moon-shaped shakarburas are ordered from a menu.

Shusha’s musical son, though, was Uzeyir Hajibeyov, who was greatly influenced by the city’s musical tradition. He is recognized as the father of Azerbaijani-composed classical music and opera. Arguably, his best work was Arshin Mal Alan (The Cloth Peddler), a romantic and comical operetta reimagining Shusha as a trade hub. Completed in 1913, this masterpiece is a fine snapshot of a city with strong cultural and religious ties to Islam that can be seen and felt in many ways.

Three years after Armenian forces withdrew from Shusha, rubble still dots the hills and buildings still stand derelict. The population has not recovered to its prewar level, and the city feels like a huge construction site. But from its scenic Jydyr plain to its historic quarters, there’s something hopeful about this enigmatic city.