Reza Shah Pahlavi was born in the village of Alasht in Savadkuh County, Māzandarān Province, in 1878, to Major Abbas Ali Khan and Noushafarin Ayromlou. His mother was a Muslim immigrant from Georgia (then part of the Russian Empire),whose family had emigrated to mainland Persia after Persia was forced to cede all of its territories in the Caucasus following the Russo-Persian Wars several decades prior to Reza Shah’s birth.