Azerbaijanis destroy 1800s stone bridge in Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - The 19th century Makun Bridge in the Nagorno-Karabakh village of Mets Tagher was destroyed in the course of Azerbaijan's river engineering and road construction between April 8 and July 7, Caucasus Heritage Watch reports.

The small structure is difficult to see in satellite imagery due to tree cover, but CHW’s sources have confirmed its location. Built in 1890 of roughly hewn stones, the arched bridge spanned a small tributary of the Ishkhanaget River.

An Armenian construction inscription was once set in the bridge’s façade: “In memory of Ghazar Harutiun Bejaniants”. It fell prior to 2009 (when first published) and was moved to the village museum before the 2020 war. Its current location and condition are unknown․

Concerns about the preservation of cultural sites in Nagorno-Karabakh are made all the more urgent by the Azerbaijani government’s history of systemically destroying indigenous Armenian heritage—acts of both warfare and historical revisionism. The Azerbaijani government has secretly destroyed a striking number of cultural and religious artifacts in the late 20th century. Within Nakhichevan alone, a historically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani forces destroyed at least 89 medieval churches, 5,840 khachkars (Armenian cross stones) and 22,000 historical tombstones between 1997 and 2006.