The village of Mazra Malaya in Western Azerbaijan, founded by natives of Nakhchivan

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

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

A separate video has been prepared for each village in three languages (English, Azerbaijani, and 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 cleansing.

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

BAKU.WS presents to readers the next part of the series, dedicated to the village of Mazra Malaya (now Pokr-Masrik) in Armenia, founded by natives of Nakhchivan.

During the tsarist period, the settlement was called Mazra Malaya, and during the Soviet period — Pokr Mazra, Khyrda Mazra.

In sources dating to the period before the early 19th century, one village called Mazra is mentioned, while in documents from a later period, two separate settlements already appear — Mazra Bolshaya (now Mets-Masrik) and Mazra Malaya (now Pokr-Masrik).

In April 1991, as part of the policy of Armenianization and destruction of Azerbaijani heritage in Armenia, the village of Mazra Malaya was renamed Pokr-Masrik.

Since 1995, the village has been part of the Gegharkunik Province of the Republic of Armenia.

Under the Russo-Ottoman Treaty of Constantinople of 1724, the territory of the modern Republic of Armenia was recognized by Russia as a possession of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1728, Ottoman officials compiled a "Consolidated Register of the Iravan Eyalet" with the names of settlements. This document mentions one village of Mazra.

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