Mets Taghlar
Mets Taghlar, Mets Tagher or Boyuk Taghlar is a village in the Khojavend District of Azerbaijan, in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The village had an ethnic Armenian-majority population prior to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, and also had an Armenian majority in 1989. After the capture of the village in 2020 by Azerbaijani forces, large portions of the village along with several historical objects were destroyed by Azerbaijani authorities.
Etymology
The village was known as Tag or Taglyar during the Russian Empire. Later, the village became known as Mets Taghlar during the Soviet period. The name Mets Tagher derives from two Armenian words, Mets, meaning great, large, or big, and Tagh, meaning quarter (of a city).History
During the Russian Empire, Mets Taghlar was part of its own rural commune within the second subcounty of the Shusha uezd of the Elizavetpol Governorate within the Caucasus Viceroyalty. During the Soviet period, the village was a part of the Hadrut District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. The village came under the control of Armenian forces during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, on October 2, 1992, and subsequently became part of the Hadrut Province of the Republic of Artsakh.The village was captured by Azerbaijani forces on 9 November 2020 during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.
In early May 2021, satellite images released by Caucasus Heritage Watch, a watchdog group made up of researchers from Purdue and Cornell, revealed that the local early 19th-century Armenian cemetery had been destroyed by Azerbaijani forces. Bulldozer tracks near the vicinity of the village's Holy Savior Church, founded in 1846, indicated that that building was also endangered.
Satellite photography from July 2021 revealed the centre of the town and a large portion of the town's buildings have been bulldozed for the construction of the Fizuli–Shusha highway. They also revealed the destruction of the statue of Sergei Khudyakov that had stood outside his house-museum.
In August 2021, satellite images released by Caucasus Heritage Watch, revealed that the village's Makun Bridge, which was built in 1890, had been destroyed by Azerbaijan between April 8 and July 7, in the course of river engineering and road construction.