Erkeç (; ) is a village in the

Goranboy District Goranboy District () is one of the 66 districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the west of the country in the Ganja-Dashkasan Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Kalbajar, Tartar, Yevlakh, Samukh, and Goygol. Its capital ...

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental and landlocked country at the boundary of West Asia and Eastern Europe. It is a part of the South Caucasus region and is bounded by ...

. The village forms part of the municipality of Mənəşli. The village had an Armenian majority prior to the

First Nagorno-Karabakh War The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic conflict, ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nag ...

and

Operation Ring Operation Ring (; , ), known in Azerbaijan as Operation Chaykand () was the codename for the May 1991 military operation conducted by the Soviet Army, Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Soviet Union), Ministry of Internal Af ...

History

Founded in 1828, the village's name comes from a Daghestani term for a horned mountain goat. Though originally the home of Russian settlers, by 1908 the village's then

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 780 was recorded as being majority ethnic Armenian. In June–July 1991, during the Karabakh conflict, the hamlet was depopulated as part of

and occupied by the Soviet 23rd Division and the Azerbaijani OMON. Footage of the days before the population's eviction was filmed by Bulgarian-born naturalised Armenian journalist Tsvetana Paskaleva. In September 1991, Armenians recaptured the dilapidated village,Black Garden by Thomas de Waal, page 119 but lost it again to

in the summer of 1992.

References

External links

* Populated places in Goranboy District Elizavetpol Governorate {{Goranboy-geo-stub