CHW will continue the costly work of cultural heritage monitoring using commercial satellite imagery. To contribute to this work, visit our website and click “Donate”. As always, we refer our findings to @unesco.org 4/4 caucasusheritage.cornell.edu

Current conditions for preserving Armenian cultural heritage in Karabakh are not favorable. As development and resettlement accelerate while international legal oversight appears poised to diminish, CHW’s monitoring work takes on heightened importance. Read more in the report. 3/4

New threats concentrate in Lachin region, where development has been intense. Threats also occur elsewhere where roadwork and development are underway, e.g., in Vangli/Vank and Shusha/Shushi. See CHW’s map of all impacts to cultural heritage since spring 2021. 2/4

As world leaders gather in Baku for the COP29 summit to advance solutions for the future, they should also call on Azerbaijan to protect the past – particularly the cultural heritage of Karabakh Armenians exiled from their homes. 6/6

Also, the Ministry of Culture should add this 19th c. Armenian church to Azerbaijan’s monument list and plan for its restoration, in collaboration with Armenian architects. As the example of Cyprus has shown, bicommunal cultural heritage work can build bridges. 5/6

In a Dec 2021 provisional ruling, the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to “prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage.” Baku must investigate and hold accountable any parties who caused the damage or failed to prevent it. 4/6

The church remained in damaged but stable condition for decades until the recent collapse documented by CHW. The engraved cross, pictured below, is to the left of the large hole where the door once stood. More about this church here: tinyurl.com/pfk4bcmd. 3/6

Photographs taken in the mid-1990s indicate that the entryway in the southern wall was already damaged by that time. Also, the stone facing around the windows was no longer present. 2/6

Preparations for COP29 may have a grave impact on Karabakh’s Armenian cultural heritage. Massive infrastructure and redevelopment projects are threatening, damaging, or destroying cultural sites in the path of omnipresent earth movers. Learn more in the report.

In this cycle, the impacts cluster in Shusha/Shushi district as well as in Kalbajar (villages of Zar/Tsar, Chirag/Chragh, and Gozlu/Vaghuhas). Also impacted: Khojaly/Askeran (Garabulag/Aknaghbyur village) and Khojavend/Martuni (Chartar and Hunarli/Tsakuri villages). 3/4

This is the third cemetery destroyed since the 2020 ceasefire. Four others have been damaged. Bulldozing Armenian burials is an emerging feature of post-war development in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh, disturbing ancestors and erasing inconvenient testimony to belonging and coexistence.

Correction: @CIJ_ICJ

At the entrance to the belfy, building inscriptions in Armenian read: “St. Hovhannes Mkrtich Church was built by Shusha townsman baron Hovhannes and Baba Stepanyan Hovnanents in memory of their deceased brother Mkrtich in the year of 1847.” 3/3