Azıx

 village  Add category

 Upload a photo

Azykh (Azerbaijani: Azıx) or Azokh (Armenian: Ազոխ) is a village in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan and is situated on the small river Ishkhanchay (Azerbaijani: İşxançay; Armenian: Իշխանագետ), near the Azykh Cave. From 1992 to 2020 the village was de facto in the Hadrut Province of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh. The village had an ethnic Armenian-majority population prior to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, and also had an Armenian majority in 1989. According to Shahen Mkrtchyan, the Armenian name of the village comes from the Armenian word, azokh which means unripe grapes. The Azerbaijani name for the village is believed to derive from Old Turkic, meaning bear den. Azokh was first mentioned in the fifth century during Vardan Mamikonian's rebellion against the Sasanian Empire in 451 AD, and also during the Mongol invasion of Armenia in the 13th century. Azokh was part of the Principality of Dizak from the 10th century, and the Karabakh Khanate from the early 18th century until its dissolution in the early 19th century. In the same time, Armenian migrants from Karadag, Iran settled in the village. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the village was recaptured by the Armenian forces in 1993.
On 9 November 2020, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev announced that the village was under Azerbaijani control.
Subsequently, it was reported that Azerbaijani forces had decapitated an 82-year-old Armenian Yuri Asryan, who refused to leave the village on 20 October as the Azerbaijani forces approached.