Kalbajar District


Kalbajar District, is a district of Azerbaijan. Kalbajar is a Turkic word meaning Castle on the mouth of the river. The entire region is now under the control of the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh, making up part of the province of Shahumyan Province. Azeri population of Kalbajar were displaced by the fighting and currently live as internally displaced persons in other regions of Azerbaijan.

Demographics

As of 1989:
The Armenian name of the district is Karvachar, which corresponds to the ancient district of Vaykunik, one of 12 cantons of Artsakh. It was also known as Upper-Khachen or Tsar and was ruled by one of the branches of the House of Khachen, who held it until the Russian conquest of the Karabakh region in the early 19th century. However, Kalbajar was deliberately excluded from the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in 1923.
As a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh War, the area was occupied by Armenian forces on April 3, 1993.

Cultural monuments

Karvachar is rich in important Armenian cultural monuments, close to 750, which include monasteries, churches, chapels, fortresses, khachkars and inscriptions. The most important of them is the monastery of Dadivank.

Under Armenian control

The district was made into the Shahumyan Region, one of the 8 regions of NKR. The region remains the least populated of the NKR regions with a total population of 2,800. The town of Karvachar is home to 500 people.