thanks, - that area mystifies me....
That area - the southern Caucasus - is almost indecipherable historically... perhaps mostly due to Russian meddling over the centuries. There are Muslim 'districts' about the size of your residential block next to Christian 'districts' that are even smaller. I imagine only God can unscramble the whole honest history of the region.
For the record, Joseph Dzughashvili - Joseph Stalin - came from Azerbaijan {born in Georgia, I think}; he was an early Bolshevik activist in the oil producing region.