Ali Khan Shirvanshir

The male protagonist, Ali is a descendant of a noble Shiite Muslim family, first met as a 13-year-old student in the Imperial Russian Humanistic High School of Baku, being exposed to Western values but retaining a love for the desert. He has already visited Tehran, where a branch of the Shirvanshir family resides, Daghestan, Tiflis, Kislovodsk, and Persia, and plans on attending the prestigious Lazarev Institute for Oriental Languages in Moscow after graduation. Ali has a "monkey's instinct for languages and dialects" and is so fluent in Russian that he can affect various regional dialects. He also learns English, which becomes important late in the novel.

By age 18, Ali is in love with a beautiful Georgian Christian girl, Nino Kipiani, and determined to marry her. He is glad that Baku does not require the veil. As a graduation present from his proud father, Ali collects a...