More and more threatened sites in Artsakh - Caucasus Heritage Watch

ArmInfo.  Today Caucasus Heritage Watch  (CHW) released its eighth report on Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh. The report documents the results of two rounds of satellite-based monitoring of over 500 cultural heritage sites in the region.

As the report notes in its summary assessment, over two observation  missions (Fall 2024 and Spring 2025) CHW did not record any new  episodes of heritage destruction. This positive assessment does come  with some caution as it was just in our last report (CHW Monitoring  Report #7) that we documented an unparalleled spasm of destruction  that led to the eradication of 6 heritage sites in just a matter of a  few months in late 2022 and early 2023.

Nonetheless, in the current report CHW has documented continuing  damage to heritage sites. The three impacted sites reported include  two historic Armenian cemeteries and a 19th century Armenian church.   LN.177-0, a cemetery near Vazgenashen/Hajisamly, has been under  sustained assault by bulldozers since Spring 2023 when we first  reported damage to the site. The roadwork in the area continues to  eat away at the cemetery and without swift action there will soon be  nothing left. SH.005-0 is similarly under attack by the apparatuses  of road construction. The first cut into the cemetery was observed in  2023 and has continued to expand to where it has damaged  approximately 16% of the burial ground.

The damage to LN.206-0, Tandzatap Church, first reported on 21  November 2024, is the most difficult to assess. Unlike other episodes  of damage and destruction observed by CHW, we see little signs of  wider transformations in the landscape: no road cuts or lot clearance  is in evidence. As a result, we continue to observe the site in order  to better understand the forces that led to the collapse of most of  the southern wall between October 5, 2023, and April 30, 2024.

The most concerning finding in CHW's eighth monitoring report is the  uptick in the number of threatened sites. Of note is not only the  number of sites CHW deems at risk of impact from adjacent activities  (n=7, the highest we have ever documented in a single mission), but  also that the sites include both Armenian and Azerbaijani heritage.  MT.451-0 (Papravend Historical Cemetery) and SH.097-0 (Khan's Palace)  are both locations closely connected to the region's Azerbaijani  community and the region's historic ties to Persia.  That these sites  are also at risk speaks to a wider callousness toward the region's  past. Indeed, as development work pushes Karabakh at a breakneck pace  into an imagined future, CHW remains deeply concerned about the  region's past and the fragile remains of all of its historic  communities.