Shekher

Shekher Շեխեր Şexer
Shekher
Coordinates: 39°38′47″N 46°58′45″E
Country	Azerbaijan
District	Khojavend
Population  (2015)[1]
• Total	407
Time zone	UTC+4 (AZT)

Shekher (Armenian: Շեխեր; Azerbaijani: Şexer) is a village in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan, in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The village had an ethnic Armenian-majority population in 1989.[2]

History

During the Soviet period, the village was part of the Martuni District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. After the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the village was administrated as part of the Martuni Province of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh. The village came under the control of Azerbaijan on 9 November 2020, during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.[3]

Historical heritage sites

Historical heritage sites in and around the village include the church of Surb Vardan (Armenian: Սուրբ Վարդան), the 16th/17th-century shrine of Pir Bab (Armenian: Փիր բաբ) with an adjacent khachkar, and two 17th-century khachkars.[4]

Demographics

Prior to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, it had an Armenian majority with 408 inhabitants in 2005,[5] and 407 inhabitants in 2015.[1]

Partnerships

In October 2018, the village signed a friendship declaration with the Commune of Arnouville, France.[6] In June 2019, the French administrative court of Cergy-Pontoise declared that the signing breached French law by exceeding the authority of a municipal jurisdiction and by not respecting the international commitments of France (notably Nagorno-Karabakh's lack of recognition as a state), proclaiming the declaration null and void.[7]

References

1. Hakob Ghahramanyan. "Directory of socio-economic characteristics of NKR administrative-territorial units (2015)".
2. Андрей Зубов. "Андрей Зубов. Карабах: Мир и Война". drugoivzgliad.com.
3. "Prezident: Azərbaycan Ordusu daha 48 kəndi, 1 qəsəbəni işğaldan azad edib". report.az (in Azerbaijani). 9 November 2020.
4. Kiesling, Brady; Kojian, Raffi (2019). Rediscovering Armenia: An in-depth inventory of villages and monuments in Armenia and Artsakh (3rd ed.). Armeniapedia Publishing.
5. "The Results of the 2005 Census of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" (PDF). National Statistic Service of the Republic of Artsakh.
6. "Artsakh's President receives delegation of French Arnouville town". armenpress.am. 2018-10-22. Retrieved 2023-11-03.
7. Anne Collin. Arnouville : la charte d’amitié avec le Haut-Karabagh annulée par la justice. Le Parisien. 3 June 2019.

External links

• Shekher at GEOnet Names Server