23 years since Shusha occupation

On the eve of Victory Day in Azerbaijan a terrible date in the country's modern history is remembered. May 8 marks 23 years since the occupation of the city of Shusha by Armenian nationalist gangs. Founded in the XVIII century as the capital of the Karabakh khanate, Shusha was the cradle of Azerbaijani culture, literature and music during the XIX and XX centuries. At 3: 20 AM on May 8, 1992 Armenian armed forces launched an operation to capture Shusha – the largest Azerbaijani settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh, with a population of about 10 thousand people. The capture of the city was supported by 40 armored vehicles of the 366th regiment of the former Soviet army.

A US State Department reference about the history of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which was distributed on March 30, 2001, runs: "... In May 1992, the Armenian and Karabakh forces captured Shusha (the historical capital of the region inhabited by Azerbaijanis) and Lachin, thereby ensuring the geographical link of NK with Armenia ... "

One of the main ideologists of the separatists, Armenian writer Zoriy Balayan in an interview with the French TV channel Antenne III in 1994, spoke about some details of the capture of the city, which was the result of a carefully planned script, developed by Armenian terrorist organizations, which were  operating in the French city of Lyon and in the Iranian capital Tehran. In another interview with the newspaper Le Progress on April 14, 1994, Balayan noted that "... the first plan regarding Shushi was developed on May 2 in Tehran. And on May 3 we already knew that Shusha will be ours in the very near future. "

In the Iranian city of Isfahan, in the meeting hall of the Armenian community, director Ahmed Bagir Yadigari showed his documentary about the capture of Shusha and the fate of 114 Azerbaijani captives. All of them were brutally murdered. In Tehran it was forbidden to show this film. According to Yadigari, he was shocked by the massacre by the Armenian militants on defenseless people. However, soon the 37-year-old director died in a car accident, which is believed to have been planned.

During the occupation of Shusha, which has an area of ​​289 square kilometers, 480 civilians were killed and 600 people wounded, 150 of them became disabled, 552 children became orphans, 68 civilians were taken as hostages or became missing, more than 25 thousand people became refugees. This cynical  military operation, which was planned by the separatists, was named "Wedding in the Mountains."

Once one of the prosperous parts of the Soviet Union, today there are ruins of the luxury villas, mosques, Soviet Khrushchev buildings, and among the giant stone walls overgrown with weeds there are cows and goats wandering  across the military arteries, sometimes whole tanks even.

But the most interesting thing is that one of the units of the Armenian forces, entering Shusha from Lachin, was commanded by Robert Kocharyan – a future President of Armenia, and supply issues and the general guidance of the separatist forces were carried out by the current president of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan.

The attack on Shusha by the Armenians was started a few hours after in Tehran with the help of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, talks between the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were initiated, which resulted with a signed peace agreemet.

After the loss of Shusha, Azerbaijan lost  Nagorno-Karabakh, as Shusha was called the crown of Karabakh, the pearl of Azerbaijan, the cradle of Azerbaijani music and conservatories of the Caucasus. Due to its wealth of cultural and historical monuments, not only of  Azerbaijani, but also of world importance, even in Soviet times, Shusha acquired the status of ahistorical and architectural reserve.

As a result of a particular intensity of the destructive activities, the story and the cultural character of Shusha are on the verge of extinction - the Shusha State Drama Theatre, the State Historical Museum of the city of Shusha and Karabakh, the house-museum of Uzeyir Hajibekov, Bulbul, Mir Movsuda Nevvab, a branch of the State Museum of the Azerbaijani Carpet, the National Art Gallery, the famous Govhar Agha mosque and others.

The primordial image of the city has drastically changed, and the stones ruthlessly demolished the most valuable landmarks, which are used for construction work in Armenia. With the occupation of Shusha, the aggressive war went beyond the administrative borders of what was then the Karabakh autonomy.