Activists reported the demolition of 25 monuments in Karabakh

The Azerbaijani authorities have removed monuments to cultural figures, participants in World War II, as well as Bolsheviks and revolutionaries from Khankendi.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, it was previously reported that a monument to Russian marine artist Ivan Aivazovsky was demolished on July 29.

01:35 10.08.2025

Activists call for Azerbaijan to stop destruction in Nagorno-Karabakh

On the occasion of the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, activists called on the international community and the Armenian authorities to prevent Azerbaijan from destroying cultural heritage and private property in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In Azerbaijan, 25 monuments erected, in particular, in honor of the Great Patriotic War figures in Khankendi have been destroyed, the public organization "Artsakh Culture and Tourism Development Agency" (the Armenian name for Karabakh) reported on its Facebook page*.

"As of July 15, all 25 monuments and busts erected in memory of outstanding figures who shaped the cultural image of the city for decades have disappeared from (Khankendi)," the report says. It is noted that monuments to Admiral Hovhannes Baghramyan, Admiral Ivan Isakov, pilot Nelson Stepanyan, as well as famous cultural figures, including musician Genrikh Barkhudaryan, poet and writer Hovhannes Tumanyan, were removed from the city. In addition, monuments to Bolsheviks and revolutionaries, including Stepan Shaumyan, Alexander Myasnikyan, and military figures of Nagorno-Karabakh, in particular Christopher Ivanyan and Anatoly Zinevich, were removed.

The public organization specified that the analysis was based on Google Earth satellite images and publications on Azerbaijani social networks.

The decisions that the leadership of Azerbaijan has been making over the past few months indicate that relations between Baku and Moscow will soon develop in the same vein as Moscow's relations with the Baltic countries, says Nikolai Silayev, a senior researcher at the Center for Caucasus Problems and Regional Security at MGIMO.

"I think that the Azerbaijani authorities will continue to demolish monuments associated with Russia in any case. They will also continue to agitate the country's domestic audience against Moscow," Gazeta.ru quotes the political scientist as saying.

It is not yet clear how official Baku will build its external policy vector towards Moscow. "Azerbaijan will suffer losses from confrontation with Russia in any case. The question is rather whether Baku will ultimately accept these risks or will return to the form of limited ties that have been preserved now,” Silayev noted.

It should be noted that the new round of deterioration in relations between the two countries was the ethnic raids in Russia and the retaliatory detentions of Russians in Azerbaijan. Baku accuses the Russian authorities of extrajudicial reprisals against Azerbaijanis, and footage of the brutal detention of Russians in Baku looks like a demonstrative response to Moscow's actions, according to the "Caucasian Knot" report "Crisis in Relations between Azerbaijan and Russia".

Relations between Moscow and Baku have noticeably worsened after the plane crash, more details can be found in the "Caucasian Knot" report "Air crash of the Baku-Grozny flight" and in the article "Geopolitical confrontation: what the crash of the AZAL plane led to".