 The emerging Azeri intelligentsia regarded Russia as channel to the European Enlightenment, criticized Islamic practices, and promoted the use of Azeri as a vehicle of local cultural expression.In their struggle for change and transformation, as Audrey Altstadt explains, the Azerbaijani intelligentsia grew to understand that it need not, indeed could not, reject its own cultural heritage.Zardabi came to such a conclusion as a result of his long years in exile in the small village of Zardab.