Places of Memory of Western Azerbaijan: The History of the Village of Almalug, Liquidated During the Soviet Period

A unique project has been presented to the public - the research work "Places of Memory of Western Azerbaijan".

For the first time, during field research on the territory of modern Armenia, data has been collected and systematized on nearly 600 villages where the ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis historically lived. In some of them, fragments of Turkic cultural and historical heritage have been preserved - cemeteries, shrines, mosques.

A separate video has been prepared for each village in three languages (English, Azerbaijani, Russian), containing photo and video footage of the specific village on the territory of modern Armenia, documented data on the number of Turks (ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis) in the 19th-20th centuries in the specific village, as well as the history of the village and the chronology of the gradual "disappearance" of the Turkic population as a result of expulsions and ethnic cleansings.

Western Azerbaijan is historically a geographical space where hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis lived. Despite attempts to erase the traces of our compatriots in these territories, remembering and being aware of the ancient places of residence of Azerbaijanis in Western Azerbaijan is the duty of each of us.

Oxu.Az presents to the readers the next part of the series, dedicated to the village of Almalug in Armenia, which was liquidated during the Soviet period.

The village was located in Zangezur, where the ancestors of Azerbaijanis historically lived and the western part of which was handed over to Armenia by the Bolsheviks. During the Tsarist period, the settlement was called Almalyg, Almalug, Almalukh, and during the Soviet period - Almalug.

The name of the village is recorded in sources of the Russian Empire from the second half of the 19th century. During the Tsarist period, the village was part of the Zangezur district of the Elisavetpol Governorate.

According to statistical data of that time, also cited in Armenian sources, at various times before 1914, exclusively or predominantly the ancestors of Azerbaijanis lived in the village.

In a source from 1886, Almalug is listed as a winter camp of the Turkic tribe Sarally, whose representatives lived predominantly in the Zangezur district. It notes that 51 people lived in the village, all of them ancestors of Azerbaijanis.

Korkotyan Z. Population of Soviet Armenia over the Last Hundred Years (1831-1931):

In 1897, 81