Recently, in the city of Baku, cultural genocide took place in different ways. One of them is simply primitive barbarism, destruction of our monuments, churches, tombstones, other cultural monuments are destroyed, secondly, there is an attempt to dis-Armenianize these cultural monuments. It’s genocide.

They put forward the thesis of certain “Alkhvanic churches” in Baku, while they cannot simply demolish these churches, for example that of Dadivank. If this was Baku’s will, it would have been destroyed long ago. But since they cannot, they are trying to eliminate the Armenian character of cultural monuments and transform them into monuments of non-Armenian culture. How come Armenian churches and monasteries that came under the control of Azerbaijanis suddenly turn out to be “Aghvanic”, and even if they are the remains of ancient Aghvank, what do they have to do with Azerbaijan and Azerbaijani culture?

It’s the same thing when Turkish President Erdogan announced that the Turks were the first to land on the Moon. Now what shall we say? Sumerians are also represented as “Azeris” when the nation of Azerbaijan was officially established in 1936.

Let us prove that after the occupation of Artsakh, the Baku authorities are taking consistent measures to destroy the historical and cultural heritage of the territories of Artsakh, which came under the control of the Azerbaijani army, and to eliminate the Armenian trace of historical Artsakh in general. Over the past year and a half, the historical and cultural monuments of many churches, monasteries and monuments have been completely destroyed or desecrated, distorted, starting with the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi, up to other various shrines and monuments. Many of these cultural crimes and vandalism cases are documented on the WesternArmeniaTv website.

It should be noted that the name “Aghvank”, also referred to as “Caucasian Albania”, was one of the ancient states of the Caucasus, bordering on Great Hayk and occupying part of the territory of present-day Baku. After the spread of Christianity in the region, the people living in this country became Apostolic Christians and were closely linked to the Armenian Apostolic Church.

From the 10th to the 11th centuries, especially after the invasions of the Seljuks-Turks and Tatar-Mongols, the Aghvank people gradually disintegrated and ceased to exist not only as a state, but also as a historical and geographical unity. The history of Aghvank is one of the least studied issues in the region, including Armenia. What do they have to do with just 1918? The created Republic of Azerbaijan and modern Azerbaijanis with Aghvan and Aghvank heritage is not clear from the point of view of objective and impartial historiography, because they did not inherit either the religion of the Aghvan people, nor even the name of their country.