Kalbajar

Kalbajar Kəlbəcər
Kalbajar
Coordinates: 40°06′24″N 46°02′18″E / 40.10667°N 46.03833°E / 40.10667; 46.03833Coordinates: 40°06′24″N 46°02′18″E / 40.10667°N 46.03833°E / 40.10667; 46.03833
Country	Azerbaijan
District	Kalbajar
Elevation	1,584 m (5,197 ft)
Population  (2015)[1]
• Total	600
Time zone	UTC+4 (AZT)

Kalbajar (Azerbaijani: Kəlbəcər (listen)) is a city and the capital of the Kalbajar District of Azerbaijan. Located on the Tartar river valley, it is 458 kilometres (285 mi) away from the capital Baku.

The city had a population of 7,246 before its capture by Armenian forces on 2 April 1993, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, which resulted in all of the city's original Azerbaijani population being forcefully expelled,^[2] after which the city was slowly repopulated by ethnic Armenians.^[3]

The city, alongside the surrounding district, was returned to Azerbaijan on 25 November 2020 per the ceasefire agreement that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.

Etymology[]

According to the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Place Names of Azerbaijan, there are several theories about the etymology of the town's name. According to one of the versions, the city was originally called Kevlicher, meaning "fortress in the upper reaches of the rivers" (kevli - "the upper reaches of the river," cher/jar - "fortress") in Old Turkic. According to another version, the name of the town comes from the combination of the Persian word kevil ("cave") and the Turkic word jer ("rock, ravine") and means "ravine with caves". This etymology is explained by the fact that there are a number of artificial caves along the Tartar River valley, where the town is located. Another version proposes that the name comes from the Turkic words kevli ("river mouths") and jar ("gorge, ravine"), and that the settlement was originally called Keblajar, but over time the name purportedly morphed to Kalbajar.^[4]

According to the Armenian book Dictionary of Toponymy of Armenia and Adjacent Territories, the name Kalbajar is a modified form of Karavachar (Armenian: Քարավաճառ) (made up of the elements kar - "rock," and vachar - "sale, selling"), a village in the Tsar region (also known as Vaykunik) of the Armenian Principality of Khachen.^[5] The village of Karavachar is mentioned in the colophon of a 15th-century Armenian manuscript. The author writes that he wrote the manuscript in the diocese of the abbot of Dadivank monastery (which still stands today in the modern Kalbajar district), in the village Karavachar of the Tsar region.^[6]

History[]

Early history[]

The city was first mentioned by Armenian sources in the 5th century as Karvachar; up until the 16th century, the settlement had the status of a village, and its population consisted of Armenians.^[7][8][9][6]

From 1812 to 1920, the area was settled by Kurds, and the settlement's appellation was distorted from the 19th-century Kyalbajar to Kyarvajar during that time.^[7]

In 1930, the Kalbajar region with an area of 1,936 km² (747 sq mi) was formed as part of the Azerbaijan SSR, the administrative centre of was the town of Kalbajar, which received the status of a city in 1980.^[10]

Red Kurdistan[]

The city was part of the Kurdistansky Uyezd and later the Kurdistan Okrug in the Azerbaijani SSR from 7 July 1923 to 23 July 1930. To its Kurdish population, it was known as Kevn Bajar.^[11]

Battle of Kalbajar[]

The city was seized by Armenian forces on 2 April 1993 during the Battle of Kalbajar, near the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and all of its Azerbaijani inhabitants were forced out.^[2] Civilians reported being forced to flee through mountains still covered in snow, resulting in hundreds freezing to death.^[12]

Human Rights Watch findings concluded that during the Kalbajar offensive Armenian forces committed numerous violations of the rules of war, including forcible exodus of civilian population, indiscriminate fire and hostage-taking.^[13] In April 1993, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 822 which called for the withdrawal of all occupying forces from the Kalbajar district, including the town of Kalbajar.^[14]

Armenian occupation[]

Following the war, the city and surrounding territory were absorbed into the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh becoming the centre of its Shahumyan Province and was renamed Karvachar (Armenian: Քարվաճառ). Starting in the early 2000s, the city was slowly repopulated by ethnic Armenians from the eastern areas of Shahumyan and Gulistan; they had fled during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War after they had been forcefully expelled by Azerbaijani forces and the aforementioned settlements had been taken under control by Azerbaijan.^[3]

Infrastructure was thereafter rebuilt and the town had electricity and a nearby highway connecting it to Armenia. In 2018, the town's school had 177 schoolchildren.^[15]

An OSCE Fact-Finding Mission visited the occupied territories in 2005 to inspect settlement activity in the area and report its findings to the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. According to FFM figures, at that time the number of Armenian settlers in the Kalbajar District was approximately 1,500, of which about 450-500 lived in Kalbajar proper. FFM reported that "housing conditions were basic and no more than 20 to 30 percent of the ruins were reconstructed, usually in a crude and make-shift manner. Some were without glass windows and were only heated by a small wood-burning stove".^[16]

From 2014 to 2020, the city maintained ties with Pico Rivera, California as a friendship city.^[17]

Return to Azerbaijani control[]

As part of an agreement that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the town and its surrounding district were initially to be returned to Azerbaijani control by 15 November 2020, but this deadline was subsequently extended to 25 November 2020.^[18] The city, along with the district were returned to Azerbaijan on 25 November 2020.^[19]

Following the end of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenian armed forces and civilians began to leave the Kalbajar area on 11 November 2020 in preparation for the handover of the town to Azerbaijani control on 15 November 2020. It was reported that some residents were burning their own homes, schools and forests and were cutting fruit trees and downing power lines prior to the handover.^[20][21][22] In the days leading up to the return to Azerbaijani control, there was heavy traffic on the road leading into the area as residents rushed to leave while other Armenians rushed to visit the nearby 9th century Dadivank monastery one last time before the border closed.^[23]

According to Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International's senior crisis adviser, who traveled to Kalbajar soon after it was returned to Azerbaijan's control, "during 27 years of occupation all was looted - not a door, nor a window, not a single roof tile was left in the houses of the Azerbaijanis who had to flee in 1993".^[24] She also reported observing in the cemetery of Kalbajar smashed graves "of Azerbaijanis who were buried here before the 1993 Armenian occupation. Some graves were freshly smashed, seemingly by Armenians who left the area last week after 27 years of occupation".^[25]

Demographics[]

Gallery[]

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  Children playing football (2010)

• 

  Street in Kalbajar (2010)

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  Street in Kalbajar (2010)

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  Basalt columns and caves near Kalbajar, locally known as "rock symphony"

• 

  Sunflowers in the countryside

• 

  Dashtak Gorge on the Tartar River, from Kalbajar

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  Dashtak Gorge near Kalbajar

• 

  Cultural Center in Kalbajar, under construction

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kəlbəcər.

• Kalbajar at GEOnet Names Server
• World Gazetteer: Azerbaijan^{[dead link]} – World-Gazetteer.com