1.
Nagorno-Karabakh War
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Inter-ethnic clashes between the two broke out shortly after the parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in Azerbaijan voted to unify the region with Armenia on 20 February 1988. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the result of a territorial conflict regarding the land. Full-scale fighting erupted in the winter of 1992. International mediation by several including the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe failed to bring an end resolution that both sides could work with. In the spring of 1993, Armenian forces captured regions outside the enclave itself, a Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed in May 1994, but regular peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group have failed to result in a peace treaty. As many as 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia, the territorial ownership of Nagorno-Karabakh today is still heavily contested between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The current conflict has its roots in events following World War I, shortly before the Ottoman Empires capitulation in the war, the Russian Empire collapsed in November 1917 and fell under the control of the Bolsheviks. Fighting soon broke out between the First Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in three regions, Nakhchevan, Zangezur and Karabakh itself, in Azerbaijan. Armenia and Azerbaijan quarreled about the boundaries of the three provinces. The Karabakh Armenians attempted to declare their independence but failed to contact with the Republic of Armenia. British troops occupied the South Caucasus in 1919, and the British command suggested Andranik cease his offense, afterward, the British provisionally affirmed Azerbaijani statesman Khosrov bey Sultanov as the governor-general of Karabakh and ordered him to squash any unrest in the region. Afterward followed the Shusha massacre of an estimated 20,000 Armenians, Two months later however, the Soviet 11th Army invaded the Caucasus and within three years, the Caucasian republics were formed into the Transcaucasian SFSR of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks thereafter created a committee, the Caucasus Bureau. Under the supervision of the Peoples Commissar for Nationalities, the future Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was created in 1923, leaving it with a population that was 94% Armenian. The reversal was substantiated with the connections the region had with Azerbaijan. The capital was moved from Shusha to Khankendi, which was renamed as Stepanakert. Armenian and Azerbaijani scholars have speculated that the decision was an application of the principle of divide and this can be seen, for example, by the odd placement of the Nakhichevan exclave, which is separated by Armenia but is a part of Azerbaijan. Others have also postulated that the decision was a gesture by the Soviet government to help maintain good relations with Atatürks Turkey
2.
Kalbajar
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Armenian and Karabakh forces invaded and occupied Kalbajar the Nagorno-Karabakh War, due to its strategic location between the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and Armenia. Human Rights Watch findings concluded that during the Kelbajar offensive both sides violated rules of wars, including fire, and the taking of hostages. The capture was condemned by the UN Security Council, there are 13 lakes in local plains and mountains. Kalbajar’s longest river is the Tartarchay and its tributaries are the Tutkhun, Lev, Zaylik, Alolar, Garaarkhaj rivers. There are also 20 well-known water springs, 70-80 per cent of the district is made up of mountains and each of them has a name. Since motor traffic in mountains is limited, local people have divided the district in different zones,1, upper zone – territories stretching from the center westwards 2. Tutgu zone – area around Zulfugarli- Baslibel 5, sarsang SES zone – forests in the east 6. The Dalidagh-Sariyer-Keyti zone consists of mountains and plains Kalbajar at GEOnet Names Server World Gazetteer
3.
Azerbaijan
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Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a country in the South Caucasus region, situated at the crossroads of Southwest Asia and Southeastern Europe. It is bound by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bound by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence in 1918 and became the first democratic state in the Muslim orient world. The country was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920 as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, the modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, prior to the official dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. In September 1991, the Armenian majority of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region seceded to form the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the region and seven adjacent districts outside it became de facto independent with the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. These regions are recognized as part of Azerbaijan pending a solution to the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is a unitary semi-presidential republic, the country is a member state of the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the NATO Partnership for Peace program. It is one of six independent Turkic states, a member of the Turkic Council. Azerbaijan has diplomatic relations with 158 countries and holds membership in 38 international organizations and it is one of the founding members of GUAM, the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Its term of office began on 19 June 2006, Azerbaijan is also a member state of the Non-Aligned Movement, holds observer status in World Trade Organization and is a correspondent at the International Telecommunication Union. The Constitution of Azerbaijan does not declare an official religion and all political forces in the country are secularist. However, the majority of the population are of a Shiite Muslim background, Azerbaijan has a high level of human development which ranks on par with most Eastern European countries. It has a rate of economic development and literacy, as well as a low rate of unemployment. According to the Davos World Economic Forum, Azerbaijans economy has scored 37th place within 138 countries in 2016, Global Competitiveness Index 2015 indicates that Azerbaijan scores highest in its region. ASAN services, established with Presidential Decree, are known for eliminating bribery. ASAN Service has been awarded with United Nations Public Service Award 2015, the ruling party, the New Azerbaijan Party, has been accused of authoritarianism and human rights abuses. The original etymology of name is thought to have its roots in the once-dominant Zoroastrianism. In the Avesta, Frawardin Yasht, there is a mention of âterepâtahe ashaonô fravashîm ýazamaide, the name Atropates itself is the Greek transliteration of an Old Iranian, probably Median, compounded name with the meaning Protected by the Fire or The Land of the Fire
4.
Armenia
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Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. The Republic of Armenia constitutes only one-tenth of historical Armenia, Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. Urartu was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia, in the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion, in between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became the first Christian nation. The official date of adoption of Christianity is 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanian Empires around the early 5th century, under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the fell in 1045. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries. By the 19th century, Eastern Armenia had been conquered by the Russian Empire, during World War I, Armenians living in their ancestral lands in the Ottoman Empire were systematically exterminated in the Armenian Genocide. By 1920, the state was incorporated into the Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, in 1936, the Transcaucasian state was dissolved, transforming its constituent states, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, into full Union republics. The modern Republic of Armenia became independent in 1991 during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Republic of Armenia recognises the Armenian Apostolic Church, the worlds oldest national church, as the countrys primary religious establishment. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented by Mesrop Mashtots in 405 AD, Armenia is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the Council of Europe and the Collective Security Treaty Organization. Armenia supports the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which was proclaimed in 1991, the native Armenian name for the country is Հայք. The name in the Middle Ages was extended to Հայաստան, by addition of the Persian suffix -stan, the further origin of the name is uncertain. It is also postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. The exonym Armenia is attested in the Old Persian Behistun Inscription as Armina, the ancient Greek terms Ἀρμενία and Ἀρμένιοι are first mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus. Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and he relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians. According to the histories of both Moses of Chorene and Michael Chamchian, Armenia derives from the name of Aram, a descendant of Hayk
5.
Republic of Artsakh
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Nagorno-Karabakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh, is an unrecognised republic in the South Caucasus. The region is considered by the UN to be part of Azerbaijan, the dispute was largely shelved after the Soviet Union established control over the area and created the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the Azerbaijan SSR in 1923. During the fall of the Soviet Union, the region re-emerged as a source of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in 1991, a referendum held in the NKAO and the neighbouring Shahumian region resulted in a declaration of independence. Large-scale ethnic conflict led to the 1991–1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War, which ended with a ceasefire that left the current borders, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is a semi-presidential democracy with a unicameral legislature. Its reliance on Armenia means that in many ways it functions de facto as part of Armenia, the country is very mountainous, averaging 1,097 metres above sea level. The population is predominantly Christian, most being affiliated with the Armenian Apostolic Church, several historical monasteries are popular with tourists, mostly from the Armenian diaspora, as most travel can take place only between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno-Karabakh is a democracy, whereby the executive power resides with both the President and the Prime Minister. The president is elected for a maximum of two-consecutive five-year terms. The current President is Bako Sahakyan, in the most recent presidential elections, held on 19 July 2012, Sahakyan was reelected to a second term. The President appoints a potential Prime Minister who is approved by a majority vote in the National Assembly. The National Assembly is a unicameral legislature and it has 33 members who are elected for 5-year terms. Three organisations have members in the parliament, the Democratic Party of Artsakh has 18 members, Free Motherland has 8 members, Nagorno-Karabakh is heavily dependent on Armenia, and in many ways de facto functions and is administered as part of Armenia. On 3 November 2006, the then-President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Arkadi Ghukasyan and it was held on 10 December of the same year and voters overwhelmingly approved the new constitution. According to official results, with a turnout of 87. 2%. The First article of the document describes the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as a sovereign, more than 100 non-governmental international observers and journalists who monitored the poll evaluated it positively, stating that it was held to a high international standard. Secretary General of the Council of Europe Terry Davis asserted that the poll will not be recognized, and is therefore of no consequence. The outcome was also criticised by Turkey, which traditionally supports Azerbaijan because of common ethnic Turkic roots, another referendum was held on 20 February 2017, with a 87. 6% vote in favour on a 76% turnout for instituting a new constitution. The new name implies a claim to the areas controlled beyond the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, the referendum is seen as a response to the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh clashes
6.
Gurgen Dalibaltayan
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Gurgen Dalibaltayan was an Armenian military commander. He was the Chief of General Staff of Armenian Armed Forces during the 1992 Battle of Shusha and his strategy is generally considered impossible, or at least implausible, as he was originally outnumbered. General military tactics suggest a force of three times the size to successfully storm and win. Dalibaltayan was born in the Armenian-populated town of Bogdanovka, near the border with Armenia and he attended the Secondary School of Gorelovka from 1934 to 1944. Upon graduating, he spent three years at the Tbilisi School of Infantry, Dalibaltayan then joined the ranks of the Soviet Army. Dalibaltayan held various commanding positions in Echmiadzin, Yerevan, Perekeshkul, Prishib, Kirovabad, Abakan and he was the commander of the 242nd Infantry Division of the Siberian Military District from 1969 to 1975. Outside of the USSR, he was Deputy Chief of Staff from 1975 to 1980 for the Southern Group of Forces in Budapest. He had also participated in academic courses for commanders at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR in 1976 and 1978. Dalibaltayan held his position starting in 1987 as Deputy Commander of the North Caucasus Military District for combat training in Rostov-na-Donu. In 1991, he left the Soviet Armed Forces prior to the Fall of the Soviet Union, the Armed Forces of Armenia, the country of origin for Dalibaltayan, had soon afterward joined him amongst its ranks. Dalibaltayan was appointed Chief of Staff of the Defence Committee of the Council of Ministers of Armenia in 1991, within the same year, he had been promoted to Chief of the General Staff of the Armenia and also became the first Deputy Defence Minister of Armenia. Dalibaltayan was one of the leaders of the Armenian military during the Nagorno-Karabakh War and he was the commander of Armenian forces for the Battle of Shusha, with the assistance of Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan. All of the factors were in the favor of the Azeri Army. The Azeris had advantage in terms of the quantity and the quality of military equipment and they held a numerical superiority and also held the high ground. Due to the position of Shusha, the town could be easily defended. Therefore, an attack by Armenian forces was not a viable option for Dalibaltayan. The capture was a success and proved to be a point in the war in favor of Armenia. The date Shusha was captured,9 May 1992, is celebrated as Victory Day in Armenia, following the war, he worked as the Advisor to the President of Armenia and the chief military inspector from 1993 to 2007
7.
Monte Melkonian
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Monte Melkonian was an Armenian left-wing nationalist militant, revolutionary, and commander. He was the leader of an offshoot of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia in the 1980s, an Armenian-American, Melkonian left the United States and arrived in Iran in 1978 during the beginning of the 1979 Revolution, taking part in demonstrations against the Shah. Following the collapse of the Shahs monarchy, he traveled to Lebanon during the height of the civil war, in ASALA, he took part in the assassinations of several Turkish diplomats in Europe during the early to mid-1980s. He planned the 1981 Turkish consulate attack in Paris and he was later arrested and sent to prison in France. In 1989, he was released and in the following year, Melkonian had no prior service record in any countrys army before being placed in command of an estimated 4,000 men in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. He had largely built his military experience beginning from the late 1970s and 1980s, Melkonian fought against various factions in the Lebanese Civil War and against the IDF in the 1982 war. Melkonian carried several aliases over his career and was known as Avo to the troops under his command in Nagorno-Karabakh, the last years of his life were spent fighting with the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army. Monte was killed by Azerbaijani soldiers while surveying Merzili with five of his comrades in the aftermath of battle and he was buried at Yerablur cemetery in Yerevan and declared a National Hero of Armenia in 1996. Melkonian was born on November 25,1957 at Visalia Municipal Hospital in Visalia, California to Charles and he was the third of four children born to a self-employed cabinetmaker and an elementary-school teacher. By all accounts, Melkonian was described as a child who joined the Boy Scouts and was a pitcher in Little League baseball. Melkonians parents rarely talked about their Armenian heritage with their children, often referring to the place of their ancestors as the Old Country and his interest in his background only sparked at the age of eleven, when his family went on a year-long trip to Europe in 1969. While taking Spanish language courses in Spain, his teacher had posed him the question of where he was from, dissatisfied with Melkonians answer of California, the teacher rephrased the question by asking where did your ancestors come from. His brother Markar Melkonian remarked that her image of us was not at all like our image of ourselves and she did not view us as the Americans we had always assumed we were. From this moment on, for days and months to come, Markar continues, in the spring of that year, the family also traveled across Turkey to visit the town of Merzifon, where Melkonians maternal grandparents were from. Merzifons population at the time was 23,475 but was almost completely devoid of its once 17, Monte would later confide to his wife that he was never the same after that visit. He saw the place that had been lost. Upon his return to California Monte returned to his education, in high school, he was exceeding all standards and having a hard time finding new academic challenges. Instead of graduating high school early, as was suggested by his principal, Monte found an alternative thanks to his father, at the age of 15 Monte traveled to Japan for a new chapter in his young life, namely to study martial arts and Japanese language. While there he began making money teaching English which helped finance his travels through several Southeast Asian countries, returning to the United States, he graduated from high school and entered the University of California, Berkeley with Regents Scholarship, majoring in ancient Asian history and Archeology
8.
Surat Huseynov
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Surat Davud oglu Huseynov is an Azerbaijani colonel and ex-Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, who rose to prominence during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. His military career led, in 1993, to his rise to Prime Minister and later prison term, in 1983–1984 he resided in Novopavlovsk, Russia. For the next two years he worked as a sorter at a storing department in Shaki, Azerbaijan. In 1986 he became inspector of a textile factory in Yevlakh and was promoted to manager just before the war. He was considered one of key figures in Soviet Azerbaijans black market and was known for having funded the sovereigntist Popular Front of Azerbaijan in the late Soviet era and he is married and has two children. At the dawn of the conflict in 1990, Huseynov formed a group supported by the local Soviet Ground Forces division. He has been reported to have originated the group in Yevlakh, in summer 1992, his detachment took part in the Azerbaijani offensive which led to the capture of Mardakert on 4 July 1992. Two days prior to that President Abulfaz Elchibey appointed Huseynov his official representative in Nagorno-Karabakh, in winter 1992–1993, when at the time Azerbaijani Minister of Defence Rahim Gaziyev ordered troops out of Haterk, Huseynov relocated his detachments to Ganja and refused to disband them. As a result, Mardakert fell to Armenians in February 1993, Elchibey responded by removing Huseynov from the government. During this period, Huseynov received extensive support from the leadership of the 104th Guards Airborne Division of the Soviet Airborne Troops headquartered in Ganja and this was due not only to the good personal relationship between them, but also because Huseynov was pro-Russian and did not conceal his feelings. At the end of May 1993 the last sub-units of the 104th Division left Azerbaijan, eventually to be relocated to Ulyanovsk in Russia, but handed over all their arms and military equipment to Huseynov. The Popular Front of Azerbaijan blamed Huseynov for treason and for ceding the villages around Mardakert to Armenians to benefit Russian geopolitical interests in the region. After the remaining Soviet turned Russian troops left Ganja on 28 May 1993, President Elchibey initiated an operation called Tufan aimed at arresting Huseynov. Elchibey deployed 4,000 troops led by Minister of Defence Dadash Rzayev, Commander of Internal Forces Fahmin Hajiyev and Attorney General Ikhtiyar Shirinov to Ganja. On 4 June 1993, at 6 oclock in the morning, the two confronted each other, however not only did the Presidential Guard fail to disarm Huseynov. The number of casualties on both sides, as well as civilians, was 69. Attorney General Ikhtiyar Shirinov among others was taken hostage, while Dadash Rzayev, Surat Huseynov demanded that Ikhtiyar Shirinov signed a warrant for President Elchibeys arrest on grounds of conspiracy, murder, and abuse of power, which was exercised immediately. Within several days Huseynov extended his control onto the neighbouring regions without meeting any opposition, upon Huseynovs approach on 18 June, Elchibey secretly fled the capital to his native village of Kalaki in Nakhchivan
9.
Tank
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A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat, with heavy firepower, strong armour, and tracks providing good battlefield maneuverability. The first tanks were designed to overcome the deadlock of trench warfare, now they are a mainstay of ground forces. Modern tanks are versatile mobile land weapon platforms, mounting a large-calibre cannon in a rotating gun turret. In both offensive and defensive roles, they are units that are capable of performing tasks which are required of armoured units on the battlefield. As a result of advances, tanks underwent tremendous shifts in capability in the years since their first appearance. Tanks in World War I were developed separately and simultaneously by Great Britain and this was a prototype of a new design that would become the British Armys Mark I tank, the first tank used in combat in September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The name tank was adopted by the British during the stages of their development. While the British and French built thousands of tanks in World War I, Germany was unconvinced of the tanks potential, Tanks of the interwar period evolved into the much larger and more powerful designs of World War II. Tanks in the Cold War were designed with these weapons in mind, improved engines, transmissions and suspensions allowed tanks of this period to grow larger. Aspects of gun technology changed significantly as well, with advances in shell design, during the Cold War, the main battle tank concept arose and became a key component of modern armies. Modern tanks seldom operate alone, as they are organized into combined arms units which involve the support of infantry and they are also usually supported by reconnaissance or ground-attack aircraft. The tank is the 20th century realization of an ancient concept, the internal combustion engine, armour plate, and continuous track were key innovations leading to the invention of the modern tank. Many sources imply that Leonardo da Vinci and H. G. Wells in some way foresaw or invented the tank, leonardos late 15th century drawings of what some describe as a tank show a man-powered, wheeled vehicle with cannons all around it. However the human crew would not have power to move it over larger distance. In the 15th century, Jan Žižka built armoured wagons containing cannons, the caterpillar track arose from attempts to improve the mobility of wheeled vehicles by spreading their weight, reducing ground pressure, and increasing their traction. Experiments can be traced back as far as the 17th century and it is frequently claimed that Richard Lovell Edgeworth created a caterpillar track. It is true that in 1770 he patented a machine, that should carry and lay down its own road and his own account in his autobiography is of a horse-drawn wooden carriage on eight retractable legs, capable of lifting itself over high walls. The description bears no similarity to a caterpillar track, armoured trains appeared in the mid-19th century, and various armoured steam and petrol-engined vehicles were also proposed
10.
Armoured fighting vehicle
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An armoured fighting vehicle is a combat vehicle, protected by strong armour and generally armed with weapons, which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked and it is not uncommon for AFVs to be simply referred to as armour. Armoured fighting vehicles are classified according to their role on the battlefield. This classification is not absolute, at different times different countries will classify the vehicle in different roles. For example, armoured carriers were generally replaced by infantry fighting vehicles in a similar role. Modern armoured fighting vehicles are the realization of an ancient concept, War machines with rudimentary armour have been used in battle for millennia. These designs historically struggled between the paradox of exposed-mobility, effective-firepower and cumbersome-protection, Siege engines, such as battering rams and trebuchets, would often be armoured in order to protect the crews from the defenders. Very large movable siege towers, helepolis were developed by Polyidus of Thessaly, the idea of a vehicle with a tortoise like cover has been known since antiquity. Frequently cited is Leonardo da Vincis 15th century sketch of a mobile, protected gun platform, the machine was to be mounted on four wheels which would be turned by the crew through a system of hand cranks and cage gears. Leonardo quoted I will build armored wagons which will be safe, there will be no obstacle which it cannot overcome. Modern replicas have demonstrated that the crew would have been able to move it over only short distances. The war wagon were medieval weapon-platforms developmed during the Hussite Wars around 1420 by Hussite forces rebelling in Bohemia. These heavy wagon were given protective sides with firing slits and heavy firepower from either a cannon or a force of hand-gunners and crossbowmen, supported by infantry using pikes, heavy arquebuses mounted on wagons were called arquebus à croc. These carried a ball of about 3.5 ounces, the first modern AFVs were armed cars, dating back virtually to the invention of the motor car. The Motor Scout was designed and built by British inventor F. R. Simms in 1898 and it was the first armed petrol engine powered vehicle ever built. The vehicle was a De Dion-Bouton quadricycle with a mounted Maxim machine gun on the front bar, an iron shield offered some protection for the driver from the front, but it lacked all-around protective armour. The armoured car was the first modern fully armoured fighting vehicle, the first of these was the Simms Motor War Car, designed by Simms and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim in 1899. The vehicle had Vickers armour 6 mm thick and was powered by a four-cylinder 3. 3-litre 16 hp Cannstatt Daimler engine giving it a speed of around 9 miles per hour
11.
Sumgait pogrom
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The Sumgait pogrom was a pogrom that targeted the Armenian population of the seaside town of Sumgait in Azerbaijan in late February 1988. The pogrom took place during the stages of the Karabakh movement. The Armenian civilian residents of Sumgait, including women and children, were slaughtered with exceptional brutality, on February 28, a small contingent of Ministry of Internal Affairs troops entered the city and unsuccessfully attempted to quell the rioting. More professional military units entered with tanks and armored personnel vehicles one day later, government forces imposed a state of martial law and curfew and brought the crisis to an end. The official death toll released by the Prosecutor General of the USSR was 32 people, the civil violence in Sumgait was unprecedented in scope and was widely covered in the Western press. The massacre, together with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, presented a challenge to the reforms being implemented by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev was later criticized for his slowness in reacting to the crisis. Because of the scale of atrocities against the Armenians as a group the pogrom was immediately linked to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the Armenian national consciousness. A number of international and Soviet sources also describes the events as genocide of the Armenian population, Sumgait pogrom is commemorated every year on February 28 in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Armenian diaspora. The Sumgait pogrom is considered to be a response of Azerbaijan to the peaceful demands of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to secede from Soviet Azerbaijan. The Sumgait events marked the beginning of the violent stage of the conflict, the city of Sumgait is located near the coast of the Caspian Sea, only thirty kilometers north of the capital Baku. It had been renovated in the 1960s and had become an industrial city, second after Baku by its industrial importance, with oil refineries. Its population in the 1960s stood at 60,000, but by the late 1980s it had swollen to over 223,000, and overcrowding among other social problems plagued the city. While there was a rate of unemployment and poverty among the Azerbaijani residents. The political and economic reforms that General Secretary Gorbachev had initiated in 1985 saw a marked decentralization of Soviet authority, Armenians, in both Armenia proper and Nagorno-Karabakh, viewed Gorbachevs reform program as an opportunity to unite the two entities together. On February 20,1988, tens of thousands of Armenians gathered to demonstrate in Stepanakerts Lenin Square to demand that the region be joined to Armenia. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to join the Armenian SSR, Gorbachev rejected these claims, invoking Article 78 of the Soviet Constitution, which stated that republics borders could not be altered without their prior consent. The vote by the Council and the subsequent protests were condemned also by the state-run Soviet media, however, as journalist Thomas de Waal wrote in his 2003 book on the conflict, after the appeal of the Council the slow descent into armed conflict began on the first day
12.
Operation Ring
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The operation involved the use of ground troops who accompanied a complement of military vehicles, artillery and helicopter gunships to be used to root out the self-described Armenian fedayeen. British journalist Thomas de Waal has described Ring as the Soviet Unions first, some authors have also described the actions of the joint Soviet and Azerbaijani force as ethnic cleansing. The military operation was accompanied by systematic and gross human rights abuses, the demands to annex the region came in the middle of Gorbachevs reform policies, Glasnost and Perestroika. By late 1989, the Communist Parties of the republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, in Nagorno-Karabakh, the intercommunal relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis had worsened due to violence and pogroms. Gorbachevs policies hastened the collapse of the Soviet system and many Armenians, Gorbachev deemed these detachments and others in Karabakh as illegal entities and banned them in a decree in July 1990. Despite this promulgation, these continued to exist and actively fought against Azerbaijani special-purpose militia brigades. Shahumyan had a population of about 20,000, of whom 85 percent were ethnic Armenian and it is widely believed that Operation Ring was conceived by Soviet authorities in order to intimidate the Armenians. The Armenian SSR had boycotted the All-Union referendum, though Armenian sources allege that Baku had planned measures against the Armenians long before the referendum. In 1991, Gorbachev set 17 March as the date of the All-Union referendum that the republics would take part in to decide the fate of the Soviet Union. The operations codename, Ring, referred to the encirclement of the towns of Getashen and Martunashen by the Soviet MVD, the 23rd Division and other elements of the Fourth Army were selected along with the Azerbaijani OMON to take part in Ring. On 30 April, the Soviet troops and OMON converged toward Getashen and Martunashen, accompanying the normal ground troops were an assortment of tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery and attack helicopters. The troops also arrested several adult males, often without any conclusive evidence, additionally, if there was no response by the villagers to the ultimatum issued by the troops, an artillery barrage was launched above and over the village itself to further intimidate the civilians. Supplanting the previous occupants were Azerbaijani refugees who had fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan during the three years of fighting. On 7 May, an operation was conducted by the same units. The operation was conducted in a similar manner but with deadlier results, the OMON units also took part in razing and looting the outlying villages around Voskepar. Residents were similarly forced to leave their homes and thus ceded them after signing a form which stated that they were leaving their homes at their own volition, the second operation provoked further anger from the Armenian government, which saw the operation as an encroachment against its sovereignty. Armenias president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan claimed that the Soviet government was exacting retribution against his country for not taking part in the All-Union referendum by depopulating the towns. Reacting to media reports of unprovoked atrocities by the OMON, four members of the Russian parliament intervened on behalf of the Armenians, arriving in Voskepar on 15 May
13.
Khojaly Massacre
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The death toll claimed by Azerbaijani authorities is 613 civilians, including 106 women and 63 children. The event became the largest massacre in the course of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, western governments and the western media refer to it as the Khojaly massacre, Khojaly tragedy or the Battle for Khojaly. Azerbaijani sources occasionally refer to the massacre as Khojaly genocide and the Khojaly tragedy, during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, both Armenians and Azerbaijanis became victims of pogroms and ethnic cleansing, which resulted in numerous casualties and displacement of large groups of people. By 1992 the conflict had escalated into a full-scale war, in February 1992 the capital of Karabakh, Stepanakert, was under a blockade and constant bombardment by Azerbaijani forces. The town of Khojaly was on the road from Shusha and Stepanakert to Agdam and had the only airport. The airport was of importance for the survival of the population in Karabakh. According to reports from Human Rights Watch, Khojaly was used as a base for Azerbaijani forces shelling the city of Stepanakert, Khojaly was shelled by Armenian forces almost daily during the winter of 1991–1992, and people grew accustomed to spending nights in basements. In 1988 the town had 2,135 inhabitants, in October 1991, the Nagorno Karabakh forces cut the road connecting Khojaly and Aghdam, so that the only way to reach the town was by helicopter. Khojaly was defended by local OMON forces under the command of Alif Hajiyev, before the attack, Khojaly was shelled daily, and was totally blockaded, with no supply of electricity, gas and water. According to Memorial, from autumn 1991 Khojaly was practically blockaded by the Armenian armed forces, some inhabitants left the blockaded town, but the civilian population was not fully evacuated, despite insistent demands of the head of executive power of Khojaly E. Mamedov. According to Human Rights Watch, the tragedy struck when a column of residents, accompanied by a few dozen retreating fighters. As they approached the border with Azerbaijan, they came across an Armenian military post and were fired upon. Thus, the majority of civilians left Khojaly, while around 200–300 people stayed in Khojaly, hiding in their houses, as a result of the shelling of the town, an unascertained number of civilians were killed in Khojaly during the assault. The Armenian side practically refused to tell Memorial observers how many people so perished, the refugees in both groups were fired upon, as a result of which many of them were killed. Running refugees came across Armenian military posts and were fired upon, some refugees managed to escape to Agdam, some, mainly women and children, froze to death while wandering around in mountains, some were captured near the villages of Nakhichevanik and Pirjamal. At the same time, Human Rights Watch and Memorial stated that the killing of civilians could not be justified under any circumstances, Human Rights Watch noted that the attacking party is still obliged to take precautionary measures to avoid or minimize civilian casualties. However, the obligation to protect the civilians was likewise breached by the Azerbaijani side, as stated by HRW report, The parties may not use civilians to shield military targets from attack or to shield military operations including retreats. Thus a party that intersperses combatants with fleeing civilians puts those civilians at risk, in one of his interviews Mutalibov stated that the event was organized by his political opponents to force his resignation
14.
Maraga massacre
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The Maraga massacre was the mass murder of Armenian civilians in the village Maraga by Azerbaijani troops, which had captured the village on April 10,1992, in the course of the Nagorno-Karabakh War. The village of Maraga was located in the Martakert region of Nagorno Karabakh, by spring 1992 the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated. The bordering villages of Karabakh were systematically raided and shelled by Azerbaijani armed forces, the village of Maraga, prior to the invasion by ground forces, had been under intense artillery fire which resulted in considerable damage to the village. Residents of the tried to shield themselves from shrapnel by digging underground shelters. Some of the residents of the village had to leave their houses, on 10 April 1992 Maragha was attacked by the Azerbaijani forces. Early in the artillery fire started, followed by a ground assault from neighboring Mir-Bashir. By the afternoon, Azerbaijans regular army forces entered the village with tanks, followed by infantry, by that time according to the data of Human Rights Watch the village had 500 residents. As the result of the attack most of the village was burnt, a preliminary investigation was carried out by Human Rights Watch and published in 1992. As reported by the Armenian fighters, the Azerbaijanis had about 20 armored vehicles, two weeks later the Azerbaijani forces launched another attack on the village. All the remaining population was forcibly deported,13 civilians were taken hostages. The whole village was razed to the ground, the Azerbaijani army captured Maragha the same day and committed a massacre of the civilian population of the village. The village was retaken by the Armenians the following day, upon re-entering the village, Armenian fighters reported that they came across bodies of forty-three civilians, most of whom were mutilated. The massacre was marked by acts of cruelty and slaughter. Azeri soldiers sawed off the heads of 45 villagers, burnt others, took 100 women and children away as hostages, looted and set fire to all the homes, and left with all the pickings from the looting. According to eyewitness accounts people were decapitated, tortured, bodies were mutilated, dissected and burnt, non-combatants, among women and children, were captured. This was truly like a contemporary Golgotha many times over, Amnesty International reported that, Over 100 residents of the village were slain, while their bodies were profaned and disfigured. Forty-five residents of the village were taken hostage including 9 children and 29 women, two weeks later the village was again attacked and the population was deported. Houses were pillaged and then most of them were burnt down, the bodies of the dead were later buried in a mass grave near the village
15.
Capture of Shusha
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It was named Wedding in the Mountains by the Armenian commandership. The seizure of the town proved decisive, however, some of the shelling was, according to the accounts of former residents, either indiscriminate or intentionally aimed at civilian targets. In February 1988, Nagorno-Karabakh had been an autonomous oblast for over seventy years inside the borders of the Azerbaijan SSR. Following its governments decision to secede from Azerbaijan and unify with Armenia, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Armenians and Azeris vied to take control of Karabakh with full-scale battles in the winter of 1992. By then, the enclave had declared its independence and set up an unrecognized, though self-functioning, a large scale population shift had also been in effect since the conflict began, with most of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan fleeing to Armenia and the Azerbaijanis in Armenia to Azerbaijan. The battle was preceded by the capture of the town. With the loss of Khojaly, Azeri commanders concentrated the rest of their firepower upon Stepanakert, on 26 January 1992 the Azerbaijani forces stationed in Shusha encircled and attacked nearby Armenian village Karintak attempting to capture it. This operation was conducted by Azerbaijan’s then defence minister Tajedin Mekhtiev and was supposed to prepare ground for future attack on Stapanakert, the operation failed as the villagers and the Armenian fighters strongly retaliated in self-defense. Mekhtiev was ambushed and up to seventy Azeri soldiers died, after this debacle, Mekhtiev left Shusha and was fired as defence minister. The Armenians to date celebrate the self-defence of Karintak as one of their early, Shusha sits on a mountaintop overlooking the NKRs highly populated capital, Stepanakert, from an elevation of 600m. An old fortress with walls, the town is five kilometers to the south of Stepanakert. From a geographical standpoint Shusha was well-suited for Azerbaijani shelling of Stepanakert, the main type of artillery used in the bombardment, which began on January 10,1992, was the Soviet-made BM-21 GRAD multiple rocket launcher, which was capable of firing 40 rockets in one volley. The GRAD launcher was similar to the World War II-era Katyusha in that it did not have a missile system. Essentially, the GRAD is designed to deliver anti-personnel devastation on an open battlefield, Shusha was the main fire point from where Stepanakert was assaulted. By one tally recorded in early April, a total of 157 rockets had landed on the city in a single day, by early 1992 the bombing intensified. In a course of one week the city was bombed with over 1,000 shells, in an article that appeared in TIME in April 1992, it was noted that scarcely a single building escaped damage in Stepanakert. In addition to the shelling, the Azeri military also launched air raids, while they were staved off numerous times, the citys leaders complained that military action had to be taken to relieve it from the continuous bombardment. On April 27, the military plans were approved to move in
16.
Armenians
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Armenians are an ethnic group native to the Armenian Highlands. Armenians constitute the population of Armenia and the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. There is a diaspora of around 5 million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside of modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian Genocide, most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian church, which is also the worlds oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, in the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots, historically, the name Armenian has come to internationally designate this group of people. It was first used by neighbouring countries of ancient Armenia, the earliest attestations of the exonym Armenia date around the 6th century BC. In his trilingual Behistun Inscription dated to 517 BC, Darius I the Great of Persia refers to Urashtu as Armina (in Old Persian, Armina and Harminuya. In Greek, Αρμένιοι Armenians is attested from about the same time, xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC. He relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians and it is also further postulated that the name Hay comes from one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—the Ḫayaša-Azzi. Movses Khorenatsi, the important early medieval Armenian historian, wrote that the word Armenian originated from the name Armenak or Aram, the Armenian Highland lies in the highlands surrounding Mount Ararat, the highest peak of the region. In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire, Mitanni, soon after Hayasa-Azzi were Arme-Shupria, the Nairi and the Kingdom of Urartu, who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. Under Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian empire reached the Caucasus Mountains, yerevan, the modern capital of Armenia, was founded in 782 BC by king Argishti I. T. Gamkrelidze and V. Ivanov proposed the Indo-European homeland around the Armenian Highland, eric P. Hamp in his 2012 Indo-European family tree, groups the Armenian language along with Greek and Ancient Macedonian in the Pontic Indo-European subgroup. In Hamps view the homeland of this subgroup is the northeast coast of the Black Sea and he assumes that they migrated from there southeast through the Caucasus with the Armenians remaining after Batumi while the pre-Greeks proceeded westwards along the southern coast of the Black Sea. However, fresh genetics studies explain Armenian diversity by several mixtures of Eurasian populations that occurred between ~3,000 and ~2,000 b. c
17.
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast
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The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was an autonomous oblast within the borders of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, mostly inhabited by ethnic Armenians. Had Turkey not been an issue, Stalin would probably have left Karabakh under Armenian control, as a result, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was established with the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic on July 7,1923. According to Karl R. DeRouen it was created as an enclave so that a strip of land would separate it from Armenia proper. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan SSR of the Soviet Union broke out in 1987, on November 26,1991, the Parliament of the Azerbaijan SSR abolished the autonomous status of the NKAO. Most of the territory of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast is under the control of the ethnic Armenian forces of Nagorno-Karabakh as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the NKAO was dissolved as an entity of Azerbaijan by the Law on Abolishment of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Mardakert District Martuni District Shusha District Askeran District Hadrut District First Secretary of the Nagorno–Karabakh Communist Party Former Soviet Union Carnage in Karabakh
18.
Nagorno-Karabakh
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Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains. The region is mountainous and forested. Azerbaijan has not exercised political authority over the region since the advent of the Karabakh movement in 1988, the region is usually equated with the administrative borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast comprising an area of 4,400 square kilometres. The historical area of the region, however, encompasses approximately 8,223 square kilometres, the prefix Nagorno- derives from the Russian attributive adjective nagorny, which means highland. The Azerbaijani names of the include the similar adjectives dağlıq or yuxarı. Such words are not used in the Armenian name, but they have appeared in the name of the region during the Soviet era as Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Other languages apply their own wording for mountainous, upper, or highland, for example, the name Karabakh comprises two words, kara and bagh. Thus Karabakh literally means black garden, the name first appears in Georgian and Persian sources of the 13th and 14th centuries. Karabagh, an alternate spelling of Karabakh, denotes a kind of patterned rug originally produced in the area. Urartian inscriptions use the name Urtekhini for the region, ancient Greek sources called the area Orkhistene. Nagorno-Karabakh falls within the occupied by peoples known to modern archaeologists as the Kura-Araxes culture. The ancient population of the region consisted of various autochthonous local, according to the prevailing western theory, these natives intermarried with Armenians who came to the region after its inclusion into Armenia in the 2nd or, possibly earlier, in 4th century BC. Other scholars suggest that the Armenians settled in the region as early as in the 7th century BC, in around 180 BC, Artsakh became one of the 15 provinces of the Armenian Kingdom and remained so until the 4th century. While formally having the status of a province, Artsakh possibly formed a principality on its own — like Armenias province of Syunik, other theories suggest that Artsakh was a royal land, belonging to the King of Armenia directly. Tigran the Great, King of Armenia, founded in Artsakh one of four cities named Tigranakert after himself, the ruins of the ancient Tigranakert, located 30 miles north-east of Stepanakert, are being studied by a group of international scholars. At the time the population of Artsakh and Utik consisted of Armenians, Armenian culture and civilization flourished in the early medieval Nagorno-Karabakh. St. Mesrop was very active in preaching Gospel in Artsakh, overall, Mesrop Mashtots made three trips to Artsakh and Utik, ultimately reaching pagan territories at the foothills of the Greater Caucasus. The 7th-century Armenian linguist and grammarian Stephanos Syunetsi stated in his work that Armenians of Artsakh had their own dialect, and encouraged his readers to learn it
19.
Blitzkrieg
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During the Invasion of Poland, Western journalists adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe this form of armoured warfare. The term had appeared in 1935, in a German military periodical Deutsche Wehr, German manoeuvre operations were successful in the campaigns of 1939–1941 and by 1940 the term blitzkrieg was extensively used in Western media. Blitzkrieg operations capitalized on surprise penetrations, general enemy unreadiness and their inability to match the pace of the German attack, during the Battle of France, the French made attempts to re-form defensive lines along rivers but were frustrated when German forces arrived first and pressed on. Despite being common in German and English-language journalism during World War II, some senior officers, including Kurt Student, Franz Halder and Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg, even disputed the idea that it was a military concept. Kielmansegg asserted that many regarded as blitzkrieg was nothing more than ad hoc solutions that simply popped out of the prevailing situation. Student described it as ideas that emerged from the existing circumstances as a response to operational challenges. The Wehrmacht never officially adopted it as a concept or doctrine, modern historians use the term casually as a generic description for the style of manoeuvre warfare practised by Germany during the early part of World War II, rather than as an explanation. According to Frieser, in the context of the thinking of Heinz Guderian on mobile combined arms formations, blitzkrieg can be used as a synonym for modern manoeuvre warfare on the operational level. The traditional meaning of blitzkrieg is that of German tactical and operational methodology in the first half of the Second World War, that is often hailed as a new method of warfare. The word, meaning lightning war, in its strategic sense describes a series of quick, the devices were largely removed when the enemy became used to the noise after the Battle of France in 1940 and instead bombs sometimes had whistles attached. It is also common for historians and writers to include psychological warfare by using Fifth columnists to spread rumours, the origin of the term blitzkrieg is obscure. It was never used in the title of a doctrine or handbook of the German army or air force. Both used the term to mean a swift strategic knock-out, rather than a new military doctrine or approach to war. The first article deals primarily with supplies of food and materiel in wartime, the term blitzkrieg is used with reference to German efforts to win a quick victory in the First World War but is not associated with the use of armoured, mechanised or air forces. It argued that Germany must develop self-sufficiency in food, because it might again prove impossible to deal a swift knock-out to its enemies, the author vaguely suggests that a massive strategic air attack might hold out better prospects but the topic is not explored in detail. Sternberg wrote that Germany was not prepared economically for a long war and he did not go into detail about tactics or suggest that the German armed forces had evolved a radically new operational method. His book offers scant clues as to how German lightning victories might be won, in English and other languages, the term had been used since the 1920s. It was later applied to the bombing of Britain, particularly London, the German popular press followed suit nine months later, after the fall of France in 1940, hence although the word had been used in German, it was first popularized by British journalism
20.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
21.
Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
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Established on 28 April 1920 as the Azerbaijan SSR, from 12 March 1922 to 5 December 1936, it was part of the Transcausasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR and the Georgian SSR. In December 1922, the Transcaucasian SFSR became part of the newly established Soviet Union, the Constitution of Azerbaijan SSR was approved by the 9th Extraordinary All-Azerbaijani Congress of Soviets on 14 March 1937. On 19 November 1990, Azerbaijan SSR was renamed the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Constitution of the Azerbaijan SSR ceased to exist in 1995, upon the adoption of the new Constitution of Azerbaijan. The name Azerbaijan originates as the Land of Atropates, an Achaemenid then Hellenistic-era king over a region in present-day Iranian Azarbaijan and Iranian Kurdistan, despite this difference, the present name was chosen by the Musavat to replace the Russian names Transcaucasia and Baku in 1918. Azerbaijan derives from Persian Āzarbāydjān, from earlier Ādharbāyagān and Ādharbādhagān, from Middle Persian Āturpātākān, from its founding it was officially known as the Azerbaijan Socialist Soviet Republic. Upon independence, it was renamed to the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1991, the current official name was retained after the new Constitution of Azerbaijan was adopted in 1995. On 13 October 1921, the Soviet republics of Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, the previously independent Naxicivan SSR would also become an autonomous ASSR within Azerbaijan by the Treaty of Kars. Borders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, like elsewhere in the USSR, were several times. On 12 March 1922 the leaders of Azerbaijan, Armenian, and this was the first attempt at a union of Soviet republics, preceding the USSR. The Union Council of TSFSR consisted of the representatives of the three republics – Nariman Narimanov, Polikarp Mdivani, and Aleksandr Fyodorovich Miasnikyan, the First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Communist Party was Sergo Ordzhonikidze. In December 1922 TSFSR agreed to join the union with Russia, Ukraine, the TSFSR, however, did not last long. In December 1936, the Transcaucasian Union was finally dismantled when the leaders in the Union Council found themselves unable to come to agreement over several issues, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia then became union Republics of the Soviet Union directly. In the spring of 1921, a general change-over from revkoms, in order to help the Azerbaijani oil industry the Supreme Council of the National Economy decided in the same year to provide it with everything necessary out of turn. The new oilfields, like Ilyich Bay, Qara-Chukhur, Lok-Batan, in 1929 a great kolkhoz movement had developed and Azerbaijan became the second Soviet tea producer after the Georgian SSR for the first time. On 31 March 1931 the oil industry of the Azerbaijan SSR, the republic gained the second Order on 15 March 1935 during the observation of its 15th anniversary. At the end of the second five-year plan Azerbaijan appeared at 3rd place in the Soviet Union by its capital investment size, in 1938, the Azerbaijani alphabet was changed from Latin to Cyrillic alphabet. During the period 17 September 1939 to 21 June 1941, the Soviet Union was Nazi Germanys most important ally, in April,1940, intelligence flights by the British and French Air Forces passed over the Absheron Peninsula. Great Britain and France seriously considered the possibility of bombing the Republics oil fields and this changed when Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941
22.
Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic
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It was established in December 1920, when the Soviets took over control of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia and lasted until 1991. On August 23,1990, it was renamed the Republic of Armenia after its sovereignty was declared and its independence was recognized on 26 December 1991 when the Soviet Union ceased to exist. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the state of the post-Union Republic of Armenia existed until the adoption of the new constitution in 1995, the modern Armenian Hayastan derives from earlier Armenian Hayk’ and Persian -stān. Hayk’ derives from Old Armenian Haykʿ, traditionally derived from a legendary patriarch named Hayk, aram above was considered to be one of his descendants. Officially, the name of the republic was the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic as defined by the 1937 and 1978 constitutions. From 1828 with the Treaty of Turkmenchay to the October Revolution in 1917, Eastern Armenia was part of the Russian Empire, after the October Revolution, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenins government announced that minorities in the empire could pursue a course of self-determination. Following the collapse of the empire, in May 1918 Armenia, a number of Armenians joined the advancing 11th Soviet Red Army. The medieval Armenian capital of Ani, as well as the icon of the Armenian people Mount Ararat, were located in the ceded area. Additionally, Joseph Stalin, then acting Commissar for Nationalities, granted the areas of Nakhchivan, the republic began under the name the Socialist Soviet Republic of Armenia in 1920. From March 12,1922 to December 5,1936, Armenia was a part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Georgian SSR, the Red Army, which was campaigning in Georgia at the time, returned to suppress the revolt and drove its leaders out of Armenia. With the introduction of the New Economic Policy, Armenians began to enjoy a period of relative stability, life under the Soviet rule proved to be a soothing balm in contrast to the turbulent final years of the Ottoman Empire. The Armenians received medicine, food, as well as other provisions from the central government, the situation was difficult for the Armenian Apostolic Church, however, which became a regular target of criticism in educational books and in the media and struggled greatly under Communism. After the death of Vladimir Lenin in January 1924, there was a power struggle in the Soviet Union. Armenian society and its economy were changed by Stalin and his fellow Moscow policymakers, in 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved under Stalins orders and the socialist republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were established instead. For the Armenian people, conditions grew worse under Stalins rule, in a period of twenty-five years, Armenia was industrialized and educated under strictly prescribed conditions, and nationalism was harshly suppressed. Stalin took several measures in persecuting the Armenian Church, already weakened by the Armenian Genocide, in the 1920s, the private property of the church was confiscated and priests were harassed. Soviet assaults against the Armenian Church accelerated under Stalin, beginning in 1929, in 1932, Khoren Muradpekyan became known as Khoren I and assumed the title of His Holiness the Catholicos. However, in the late 1930s, the Soviets renewed their attacks against the Church and this culminated in the murder of Khoren in 1938 as part of the Great Purge, and the closing of the Catholicosate of Echmiatsin on August 4,1938
23.
Shusha
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Shusha, or Shushi, is a city in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, however, it is a de jure part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, with the status of an administrative division of the surrounding Shusha Rayon. Situated at an altitude of 1, 400–1,800 metres in the picturesque Karabakh mountains, according to some sources the town of Shusha was founded in 1752 by Panah Ali Khan. Other sources suggest that Shusha served as a town and an ancient fortress in the Armenian principality of Varanda during the Middle Ages, from the mid-18th century to 1822 Shusha was the capital of the Karabakh Khanate. The town became one of the centers of the South Caucasus after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus region in the first half of the 19th century over Qajar Iran. Over time, it became a city and a home to many Azerbaijani intellectuals, poets, writers and especially, along with Tbilisi, it was one of the two main Armenian cities of the Transcaucasus and the center of a self-governing Armenian principality from medieval times through the 1750s. Throughout modern history the city mainly fostered a mixed Armenian–Azerbaijani population, after the capture of Shusha in 1992 by Armenian forces, its population diminished dramatically again and is now almost exclusively Armenian. The Gospel was created in Shusha by the calligrapher Ter-Manuel in 1428, panin, the Georgian king Erekle II documented that there was an ancient fortress which was conquered, through deceit, by one man from the Muslim Jevanshir tribe. The same information about the ancient fortress is confirmed by the Russian Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov in his letter to Prince Grigory Potemkin, when discussing Karabakh and Shusha in the 18th century, the Russian diplomat and historian S. M. Bronevskiy (Russian, С. Броневский implied in his Historical Notes that Shusha was a possession of the Melik-Shahnazarian clan, Russian historian P. G. Butkov (Russian, П. The mid-18th century foundation is supported by Encyclopaedia of Islam, Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Melik Shahnazar of Varanda, who was the first of the Armenian meliks to accept the suzerainty of Panah Ali Khan, Panah khan resettled to Shusha the population of Shahbulag and some nearby villages, and built strong fortifications. During the rule of Ibrahim-Khalil khan, the son of Panah Ali khan, although Panah Ali khan has been in conflict with Nader Shah, but the new ruler of Persia, Adil Shah, issued a firman recognizing Panah Ali as the Khan of Karabakh. Less than a year after Shusha was founded, the Karabakh Khanate was attacked by Muhammed Hassan khan Qajar, during the Safavid Empire Karabakh was for almost two centuries ruled by Ziyad-oglu family of the clan of Qajars, and therefore, Muhammed Hassan khan considered Karabakh his hereditary estate. Muhammed Hassan khan besieged Shusha but soon had to retreat, because of the attack on his territory by his opponent to the Iranian throne. His retreat was so hasty that he left his cannons under the walls of Shusha fortress. Panah Ali khan counterattacked the retreating troops of Muhammad Hassan khan, in 1756 Shusha and the Karabakh Khanate underwent a new attack from Fatali khan Afshar, ruler of Urmia. With his 30,000 strong army Fatali khan also managed to support from the meliks of Jraberd and Talish
24.
Lachin
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Lachin or Berdzor, formerly Abdallyar, Datschin) is a town internationally recognized de jure as part of Azerbaijan, but currently controlled by the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Since 1992 the area has been under the control of the NKR, which has renamed the town Berdzor, the government of Azerbaijan considers it to be the regional center of its Lachin Rayon. The town and its surrounding region serve as the strategic Lachin corridor connecting the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with Armenia and it was originally known as Abdalyar or Abdallyar. It was granted town status in 1923 and renamed Lachin in 1926, the town of Lachin on July 7,1923 became the administrative center of Kurdistansky Uyezd, often known as Red Kurdistan, before it was moved to Shusha. It was dissolved on April 8,1929, Kurdish schools, on May 15,1992, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army took control of the first land-corridor to Armenia. Previously, on May 13,1992 Turkey threatened Armenia that, It would intervene militarily if Shusha, Russia responded by signing a military agreement with Armenia, pledging military aid if its security was threatened. On May 20,1992, Turkey reassured Russia that it would not intervene militarily, thus, after three years of blockade, a land bridge linking the Republic of Armenia with the territory of Nagorno Karabakh was established. In the fall of 1992, Azerbaijani forces tried to control over Lachin. All of Lachins Azerbaijani and Kurdish population fled as a result of the fall of the region to ethnic Armenian forces, the town is scenically built on the side of a mountain on the left bank of Hakari River. Lachin town and the surrounding rayon were the location of fighting during the 1990-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh war. Lachin is the most important town under Armenian control because of the Lachin corridor, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group co-chairs noted that Lachin has been treated as a separate case in previous negotiations. This is because Lachin is Nagorno Karabakhs humanitarian and security corridor, without it, Nagorno-Karabakh would remain an isolated enclave. The Lachin corridor and the Kelbajar district have been at the center of Armenian demands during the Nagorno-Karabakh peace talks with Azerbaijan, on 16 June 2015 European Court of Human Rights passed a judgement in the case of ″Chiragov and Others v. The Court confirmed that Armenia exercised effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories, Berdzor is the capital of Kashatagh Region. Berdzor is twinned with, Highland, California Lachin corridor Е, pictures of Lachin Demographic Crisis in Lachin More information about Lachin from Armeniapedia. com Lachin
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Aghdara (town)
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Aghdara or Martakert is the de facto administrative center of Martakert Region of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and a de jure town in the Tartar District of Azerbaijan. The town is de facto part of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since the end of the 1991-94 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the climate here is classified as Cfa by the Köppen-Geiger system. World Gazetteer, Azerbaijan – World-Gazetteer. com Aghdara at GEOnet Names Server
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Canyon
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A canyon or gorge is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from the erosive activity of a river over geologic timescales. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps. Usually a river or stream and erosion carve out such splits between mountains, examples of mountain-type canyons are Provo Canyon in Utah or Yosemite National Park in Californias Sierra Nevada. Canyons within mountains, or gorges that have an opening on one side are called box canyons. Slot canyons are very narrow canyons, often with smooth walls, steep-sided valleys in the seabed of the continental slope underwater are referred to as submarine canyons. Unlike canyons on land, submarine canyons are thought to be formed by turbidity currents, the word canyon is Spanish in origin, with the same meaning. The word canyon is used in North America while the words gorge and ravine are used in Europe and Oceania, though gorge. In the United States, place names generally use canyon in the southwest and gorge in the northeast, in Canada, a gorge is usually narrow while a ravine is more open and often wooded. The military-derived word defile is occasionally used in the United Kingdom, most canyons were formed by a process of long-time erosion from a plateau or table-land level. The cliffs form because harder rock strata that are resistant to erosion, Canyons are much more common in arid than in wet areas because physical weathering has a more localized effect in arid zones. The wind and water from the combine to erode and cut away less resistant materials such as shales. The freezing and expansion of water also serves to help form canyons, water seeps into cracks between the rocks and freezes, pushing the rocks apart and eventually causing large chunks to break off the canyon walls, in a process known as frost wedging. Canyon walls are formed of resistant sandstones or granite. Sometimes large rivers run through canyons as the result of geological uplift. These are called entrenched rivers, because they are unable to alter their course. In the United States, the Colorado River in the Southwest, Canyons often form in areas of limestone rock. As limestone is soluble to an extent, cave systems form in the rock. When these collapse, a canyon is left, as in the Mendip Hills in Somerset and Yorkshire Dales in Yorkshire, England
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Murovdag
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The Murovdağ or Mrav is the highest mountain range in the Lesser Caucasus. The range is about 70 kilometres long, and Gamish Mountain is its highest peak at 3,724 metres and it is made up mainly of Jurassic, Cretaceous and Paleogene rocks. The Murovdağ ridge extends north from Hinaldag Peak through Gamish Mountain, the northeastern slope features a group of scenic lakes, including Göygöl near the northern slope. The Karabakh Plateau extends from the south of Murovdağ, fir and spruce forests are spread as far southeast as the Murovdağ. The summer mountain pastures of Murovdağ were traditionally used by Azerbaijani, the mountain ridge forms the northern part of the line of control separating the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from Azerbaijan. Its southern slopes run through the Martakert region of Nagorno-Karabakh
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Kurds
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The Kurds are culturally and linguistically closely related to the Iranian peoples and, as a result, are often themselves classified as an Iranian people. A recent Kurdish diaspora has also developed in Western countries, primarily in Germany, the Kurdish language refers collectively to the related dialects spoken by the Kurds. It is mainly spoken in parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria. Kurdish holds official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic, is recognized in Iran as a regional language, the Kurdish languages belong to the northwestern sub‑group of the Iranian languages, which in turn belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family. According to Mackenzie, there are few features that all Kurdish dialects have in common. And the fact that this reflects the sense of ethnic identity and unity of the Kurds. The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at close to 30 million, Kurds comprise anywhere from 18% to 20% of the population in Turkey, possibly as high as 25%,15 to 20% in Iraq, 10% in Iran, and 9% in Syria. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan, the Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in West Asia after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks. The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 18% in Iraq, 24% in Iran, and 4% in Syria. Recent emigration accounts for a population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries and this groups population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990. The land of Karda is mentioned on a Sumerian clay-tablet dated to the 3rd millennium B. C. This land was inhabited by the people of Su who dwelt in the regions of Lake Van. Other Sumerian clay-tables referred the people, who lived in the land of Karda, as the Qarduchi and the Qurti. Many Kurds consider themselves descended from the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, the claimed Median descent is reflected in the words of the Kurdish national anthem, We are the children of the Medes and Kai Khosrow. The Kurdish languages form a subgroup of the Northwestern Iranian languages like Median, some researchers consider the independent Kardouchoi as the ancestors of the Kurds. The term Kurd, however, is first encountered in Arabic sources of the seventh century, the Kurds have ethnically diverse origins. During the Sassanid era, in Kar-Namag i Ardashir i Pabagan, after initially sustaining a heavy defeat, Ardashir I was successful in subjugating the Kurds. In a letter Ardashir I received from his foe, Ardavan V, the usage of the term Kurd during this time period most likely was a social term, designating Northwestern Iranian nomads, rather than a concrete ethnic group
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Khojavend (town)
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Khojavend is a town and the provincial capital of Martuni Region of the de facto independent but unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It is located approximately 41 kilometers east of the capital of Stepanakert. It has a population of 5,700 as of 2015, excavations in Khojavand have uncovered a number of tombs dating to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Martuni is also home to several ruined churches and remains of settlements. During Soviet times, Khojavand was the capital of the district located in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The population of the town, grouped into kolkhozes, largely occupied itself with raising livestock, grape growing, wheat cultivation, Martuni, and the district itself, became a frontline city during the latter stages of the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Martuni is twinned with, Les Pennes-Mirabeau, France, Les Pennes-Mirabeau and Martuni became sister cities on 11 June 2013
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Yevlakh
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Yevlakh is a city in Azerbaijan,265 km west of capital Baku. It is surrounded by, but administratively separate from, the rayon of the same name, the city forms a distinct administrative division of Azerbaijan. The name of the city comes from an Old Turkic word meaning swampy place, Yevlakh is one of the important rayons of the country. The grain and cotton growing, as well as cattle breeding sectors have played an important role in city economy, the farmers grow potato, vegetable, water-melon and fruits, as well. Yevlakh City is also rich with natural resources like clay mixture sand deposits, as well as clay, sand, the regional channel El TV is headquartered in the city. Yevlakh has an urban transport system, mostly managed by the Ministry of Transportation. Yevlax Airport is the airport in the city. The airport is connected by bus to the city center, there are domestic flights to Baku. Yevlakh sits on one of the Azerbaijani primary rail lines running East-West connecting the capital, Baku, the Kars–Tbilisi–Baku railway will run along the line through the city. The railway provides both human transportation and transport of goods and commodities such as oil and gravel, yevlakhs Central Railway Station is the terminus for national and international rail links to the city. The Kars–Tbilisi–Baku railway, which will directly connect Turkey, Georgia, the completed branch will connect Yevlakh with Tbilisi in Georgia, and from there trains will continue to Akhalkalaki, and Kars in Turkey. Some of the many prestigious residents include, Orthodox theologian Pavel Florensky, human rights activist Anar Mammadli. Yevlakh at GEOnet Names Server World Gazetteer, Azerbaijan – World-Gazetteer. com
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Ganja, Azerbaijan
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Ganja is Azerbaijans second largest city with a population close of about 325,200. It was named Elisabethpol in the Russian Empire period, the city regained its original name, Ganja, in 1920 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again in 1935 to Kirovabad, in 1989, during Perestroika, the city regained its original name. The area in which Ganja is located was known as Arran from the 9th to 12th century, its urban population spoke mainly in the Persian language. According to the legend, the Arab governor had a dream where a voice told him there was a treasure hidden under one of the three hills around the area where he camped. The voice told him to unearth it and use the money to found a city and he did so and informed the caliph about the money and the city. Caliph made Muhammad the hereditary governor of the city on a condition that he would give the money he found to the caliph, Ganja is also the birthplace of the famous poet Nizami Ganjavi. The city was revived after the Safavids came to power in 1501, for a short period, Ganja was renamed Abbasabad by Shah Abbas after war against the Ottomans. In 1747, Ganja became the center of the Ganja Khanate for a few decades following the death of Nader Shah, until the advent of the Iranian Zand and Qajar dynasties. The khans/dukes who de facto self-ruled the khanate, were subordinate to the rule in mainland Iran and were from a branch of the Iranian Qajar family. From the late 18th century, Russia actively started to increase its enroachments into Iranian, Russian expansion into the South Caucasus met particularly strong opposition in Ganja. Some western sources assert that the capture of the city was followed by a massacre of up to 3,000 inhabitants of Ganja by the Russians. They also claim that 500 of them were slaughtered in a mosque where they had taken refuge, thosaunds of Azeris left Ganja and fled to Iran following the capture. A brief Iranian recapture of its territories happened between 1826-1827 during the Russo-Persian War, but the resulting Treaty of Turkmenchay made its inclusion into the Russian Empire definite. It was renamed Elisabethpol after the wife of Alexander I of Russia, Elisabeth, elizavetpol was an uyezd of Tiflis Governorate before 1868. The Russian name was not accepted by Azerbaijanis who continued to call the city Ganja, in April 1920, the Red Army occupied Azerbaijan. In May 1920, Ganja was the scene of an abortive anti-Soviet rebellion, in 1935, Joseph Stalin renamed the city Kirovabad after Sergei Kirov. In 1991, Azerbaijan re-established its independence, and the ancient name of the city was given back, for many years the 104th Guards Airborne Division of the Soviet Airborne Troops was based in the town
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Karabakh
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Karabakh is a geographic region in present-day eastern Armenia and southwestern Azerbaijan, extending from the highlands of the Lesser Caucasus down to the lowlands between the rivers Kura and Aras. It includes three regions, Highland Karabakh, Lowland Karabakh, and a part of Syunik, the name Karabakh or Gharabagh is generally believed to originate from Turkic and Persian, literally meaning black garden. The placename is first mentioned in the Georgian Chronicles, as well in Persian sources from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the name became common after the 1230s, when the region was conquered by the Mongols. The first time the name was mentioned in medieval Armenian sources was in the century, in Tovma Metsopetsis History of Tamerlane. However, it is possible that the region had earlier been part of Orontid Armenia from the fourth to second centuries B. C. After the partition of Armenia by Rome and Persia in 387 A. D. it became a part of the Caucasian Albanian satrapy of Sasanid Persia, the Arab invasions later led to the rise of several Armenian princes who came to establish their dominance in the region. Centuries of constant warfare on the Armenian Plateau forced many Armenians, including those in the Karabakh region, to emigrate, during the period of Mongol domination, a great number of Armenians left Lowland Karabakh and sought refuge in the mountainous heights of the region. In the fifteenth century, the German traveler Johann Schiltberger toured Lowland Karabakh and described it as a large and beautiful plain in Armenia, Armenian princes times ruled as vassal territories by the Armenian House of Khachen and its several lines, the latter Melikdoms of Karabakh. The Safavids appointed the rulers of Ganja khanate from Ziad-oglu Qajar family to govern Karabakh, the Iranian Qajar dynasty reestablished rule over the region several years later. In 1813, under the terms of the Treaty of Gulistan, under Russian rule, Karabakh was a region with an area of 13,600 km2, with Shusha as its most prominent city. Its population consisted of Armenians and Muslims, the Russians conducted a census in 1823 and had tallied the number of villages and assessed the tax basis of the entire Karabakh khanate, which also included Lowland Karabakh. According to the statistics of the survey carried out by the Russians in 1823. On the other hand, the population of the Karabakh khanate, an additional 279 Armenian families were settled in the villages of Ghapan and Meghri in Syunik. Though some of the returning Armenians wished to settle in Karabakh and this took place at the same time as a large number of the Muslims of the region departed for the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran. The percentage of Armenians accordingly increased to 35% in 1832 and 53% in 1880 and these were also seen as consequences of Russo-Turkish wars of 1855-1856 and 1877-1878 because Russians saw the Muslims as unreliable and allies to their ethnically close Turks. In 1828 the Karabakh khanate was dissolved and in 1840 it was absorbed into the Kaspijskaya oblast, in 1876 it was made a part of the Elisabethpol Governorate, an administrative arrangement which remained in place until the Russian Empire collapsed in 1917. After the dissolution of Russian Empire Karabakh, Zangezur and Nakhchivan were disputed between newly established republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan, fighting between two republics broke out. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the British command affirmed Khosrov bey Sultanov as the provisional governor-general of Karabakh and Zangezur, pending a final decision by the Paris Peace Conference
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Vardenis
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Vardenis, is a town at the southeastern part of the Gegharkunik Province of Armenia. It is located in the valley of the Masrik River, on the territory of the Masrik artesian basin at 1,943 metres above sea level and it is 170 kilometres from the capital Yerevan, and 75 kilometres from the provincial centre Gavar. The administrative territory of Vardenis comprises 3,006 hectares, of which 736 hectares is occupied by the town itself, Vardenis got its status as an urban settlement in 1995. As of the 2011 census, the population of the town was 12,685, however, as per the 2016 official estimate, the population of Vardenis is 12,600. The current territory of Vardenis was formerly known as Vasakashen, Voskeshen, and later Basargechar until 1969, the current territory of Vardenis occupies part of the historic Sotk canton of Syunik Province. According to legends, the settlement was founded by Gegham, the grandson of the legendary Hayk and named Geghamabak. According to the historian Ghevond Alishan, Gaburn Vasak, the prince of Syunik, after the fall of the Arshakuni dynasty, the county of Sotk was transferred to the dynasty of Smbatyan, prince of Vaykunk in the county of Artsakh. In the 19th century, many Armenians from the area migrated to Georgia, in 1829–1830, the settlement was re-inhabited by Armenian migrants from Diadin in Western Armenia. From 1930 to 1995 it was an administrative centre, until 1969, the town was officially called Basargechar. The first general plan of Vardenis was applied in 1952. The updated plan of the town, including the community lands, was developed by the requirement of the Ministry of Urban Planning of the Republic of Armenia in 2004, Vardenis is one of the oldest settlements in Armenia. The town and its vicinities are rich in heritage with 568 monuments recorded. In the centre of Vardenis, there is the Church of Surp Astvatsatsin, built in 1905, the church is surrounded with numerous khachkars dating back to the 14th and the 17th centuries. Vardenis is located on the slopes of the 82-kilometre range of Vardenis mountains, the highest peak, also named Vardenis, is 3,522 metres above sea level. To the north-east, west and south-east of the town there are roads to different parts of Armenia. The town is bordered by the range of Sevan mountains. Vardenis is 5 kilometres from Lake Sevan and it is affected by its proximity. The town of Vardenis is situated on the Masrik plain, in the valley of Masrik river, from the north it is bordered by Lake Sevan, from the east by Zangezur mountains and from the south-east by Vardenis mountains
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Kalbajar District
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Kalbajar District is a district of Azerbaijan. Kalbajar is a Kurdish word meaning Stone market, some suggest it to be a Turkic name meaning Castle on the mouth of the river. The entire region is now under the control of Armenian forces who call the western half Karvajar, the eastern half is part of Nagorno-Karabakh, making up part of the province of Martakert. The Kurdish and Azeri population of Kalbajar were displaced by the fighting and it was also known as Upper-Khachen or Tsar and was ruled by one of the branches of the House of Khachen, who held it until the Russian conquest of the Karabakh region in the early 19th century. However, Kalbajar was deliberately excluded from the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in 1923, as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the area was liberated by Armenian forces in 1992. Karvachar is rich in important Armenian cultural monuments, close to 750, the most important of them is the monastery of Dadivank. The district was made into the Shahumyan Region, one of the 8 regions of NKR, the region remains the least populated of the NKR regions with a total population of 2,800. The town of Karvachar is home to 500 people, battle of Kelbajar Interactive map of Azerbaijan
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Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
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