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The region we now call Azerbaijan was then in a politically and ethnoculturally intricate transitional state, governed by different semi-autonomous dynasties such as the Shirvanshahs, who maneuvered among Arab, Persian and Turkic influences.

The vernaculars spoken across the South Caucasus formed a complex mix consisting primarily of Northwestern Iranian languages, Northeast Caucasian languages, Kartvelian languages (Georgian being the most prominent but not the only one), Armenian, Indo-Iranian languages and Turkic languages (including the early forms of what evolved into Azerbaijani Turkic).

The Byzantine Empire had a presence but did not exercise consistent control over the highland South Caucasus interior. Seljuk Turkic incursions began in the 11th century, but political fragmentation and local resistance excluded their hegemony until the Mongol invasions. These began around 1220 and effectively ended this era of South Caucasus autonomy.

Thus, leaving aside the three years following the end of World War I – too short to qualify as a“historical era,” properly speaking – the last time the South Caucasus was relatively autonomous from Russian, Persian and other spheres of influence was approximately 800 to 1,100 years ago: before the Mongol conquest and well before the flourishing of the Romanov, Safavid (and their successors) and Ottoman dynasties that define the emergence of the modern era in present-day historical consciousness.

From the South Caucasus to Central Asia

Jumping to the present, the South Caucasus today anchors a westward corridor of strategic depth for Central Asia, offering the only viable east-west transit alternative to routes passing through Russia or Iran.

Azerbaijan arguably serves as the linchpin of this corridor, the critical enabler without which the system would not function. Its territory hosts and integrates essential infrastructure linking Central Asia with Turkey and onward to Europe, not through rhetorical connectivity but via physical corridors that are already operational and expanding.

At the core is the Middle Corridor (Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, TITR), which originates in Kazakhstan, crosses the Caspian Sea and runs through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey before entering European markets.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the re-imposition of sanctions, this route has gained heightened significance. The Middle Corridor is not merely a grand infrastructural vision; it rests on concrete, multilateral agreements and functioning multimodal logistics hubs.

A central node of the Middle Corridor is the Port of Alat, south of Baku, which accommodates container transshipment from maritime to rail and road traffic. It serves as the principal logistical hinge point between the trans-Caspian and South Caucasus transit systems.

The Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway provides a direct rail link from the Caspian basin to Anatolia and then to Europe, bypassing both Russian and Iranian territory. Its freight volume has significantly increased in recent years, particularly since early 2022. Its recently achieved capacity expansion and double-tracking of key segments establish it as a permanent artery of Eurasian transit.

The integration of Central Asia with the South Caucasus

Energy export infrastructure further increases Central Asia's focus on the South Caucasus. The Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) – a non-Russian and non-Iranian energy vector – transports Azerbaijani natural gas from the Caspian Sea to European markets. The expansion of SGC throughput, including interconnectors into Balkan networks and now East Central Europe, reflects its geostrategic irreversibility.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are embedding the South Caucasus further into Central Asian strategy through growing energy and transport cooperation. In 2022 and 2023, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan signed successive agreements to boost oil transshipment via the Caspian, while Uzbekistan has similarly coordinated on containerized freight routes.

Trilateral and quadrilateral formats among Central Asian and South Caucasus states have begun to institutionalize regular coordination on such practical tasks as customs simplification, port throughput and freight schedule alignment.

Uzbekistan and even Turkmenistan – with the assistance of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan – are now becoming integrated more integrally into the Middle Corridor. International financial institutions, which had originally targeted only Kazakhstan in Central Asia, are now extending cooperation to other states in the region.

This development complements the coordination of customs harmonization and digital documentation among Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey to resolve non-physical bottlenecks to the west of the Caspian Sea.

From this perspective, it is clear that the South Caucasus no longer functions as a marginal buffer but is an active integrator of Central Asia into the broader Eurasian system.

Moreover, the region's infrastructural and diplomatic initiatives no longer depend upon great-power patronage. Instead, they reflect an emerging Eurasian pluralism anchored in mutual interests realized through concrete investments. These dynamics point toward nothing less than a re-patterning of Eurasia's modern-era geoeconomic core.