Kazar Hovsepyan, an Udin historian sorrowfully gives the list of those Udin villages where the population was assimilated into Turks at the beginning of the 20th century: Vantam, Vardanlu, Ermanit, Mukhants, Oraban, Ptez, Kungyut, Kokhmukh, Kutkashen, Kormukh, Zaizit, Gis, Jourlu, Soultan-Nukhi, Mirzabeilu, Bum and many others. Even at the beginning of the 20th century the people of these villages who had been forcedly converted into Moslems made attempts to revive their native language. Some of the aforementioned villages, such as Mirzabeilu, Jourlu, Soultan-Nukhi were still bilingual (Azerbaijani and Udinish) till the 60s' of the 20th century. The Uti people are of Albanian origin: The Uti, a Lezghin people who settled down in the Caucasus from time immemorial are most presumably the descendants of the Albanians mentioned in Armenian sources. Most of them were baptized by the Armenians in earlier periods but Christianity did not take root among them and after the Tartar incursions they embraced Islam. At present the Uti language is spoken in two villages in Nukhi District: Vardashen and Nizh where the number of the inhabitants is about 10.000. There are also some other Moslem villages where this language has been preserved to some extent. Although the present-day Uti language has been greatly influenced by the Tartar language and comprises a good many Armenian words it has retained the peculiarities typical of Lezghin languages. "The inhabitants of Nizh were liberated from the Persian dominion through the efforts of Prince Madatian. Throughout many centuries the Uti inhabitants of Nizh were the faithful adherents of the Armenian Church but in the XVIII c. some of them adopted Islam yielding up to the Muslim rulers.The archive document entitled "The Appeal of the Uti to Peter I" (1724) gives an eloquent picture of that period: With our faces downcast and our eyes filled with tears we are kissing your feet's sole and informing you with entreaties and supplications about what trouble the infidels have caused us. First they burnt down our churches and maltreated us cruelly fighting against the faith of our ancestors. They forced our priests to repudiate their religion killing some of them, captured the women together with their children seizing the latter from their mothers. Monasteries and churches were abandoned and up today those who have survived are still consigned to torture: we are neither alive nor dead. We are the Uti people of Albanian origin, our forefathers believed in God having Elisha the Apostle as their preacher, and we live near the place of martyrdom of the holy apostles. Your Majesty knows that in earlier times our people did not have any authorities to build a magnificent monastery in the place of the Apostle's ordeal: our ancestors built only a small church there which gave us our spiritual bread of life. However, the infidels burnt it down and compelled us to renounce our faith. We secretly remain faithful to our religion but they make everybody, both the old and the young, embrace Islam using the power of their swords... .Written on 20 March 1724. The inhumane torture proving too difficult to bear the inhabitants of the most Uti and Armenian villages of the district (as well as those throughout the region) had declared themselves Moslem by the middle of the XVIII c: There are many Turkish villages in the vicinity of Nizh which, according to the old, were once inhabited by the Uti while at present their population consists of Moslems who have repudiated their faith and speak Turkish having lost the Uti language altogether. These are Vardanlu, Ghutghashen, Boum, Tikanlu and Khachmaz where up to the present Armenian cemeteries and ruins of churches are preserved, a fact proving that these settlements were once Uti or Armenian-inhabited. According to the old during the Persian dominion the khans forced the Uti to repudiate their religion and embrace Islam: for fear of persecution the Armenian and Uti population of the nearby villages renounced not only their faith but also their Mother tongue and national customs. However, the Uti people of Nizh remained faithful to their creed preferring to die as the followers of the living and holy religion of their ancestors rather than adopt Islam spread by the threats of the khan-tyrants and caliphs.