Tsakuri
Tsakuri or Hunarli 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.
The village is located 13 km from the town of Hadrut and a 57 km drive over the north-south highway from the regional capital of Stepanakert. Hikers reach Tsakuri in the Togh (Tugh) section of the marked Janapar trail.
History
During the Soviet period, Tsakuri was part of the Hadrut District of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. After the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the village was administrated as part of the Hadrut Province of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh. The village came under the control of Azerbaijan on 7 October 2020, during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war.Historical heritage sites
Historical heritage sites in and around Tsakuri include the monastery complex of Tsaghkavank, of which only the Holy Mother of God Church has been preserved, the Ptkatagh Monastery built in 1670, a cemetery from between the 17th and 19th centuries, a 17th-century khachkar, and a 19th-century spring monument.Holy Mother of God Church
The Holy Mother of God Church was founded in the 12th century and contains a khachkar from 1198, with the current church dating from 1682. The church is the only remaining structure of the Tsaghkavank monastery complex in Tsakuri.Efforts to rehabilitate the church were initiated by a group of international benefactors, and preparation work and fundraising started in the 2010s. In July 2013, the Primate of the Diocese of Artsakh of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, gave his blessing to the project and construction work started in May 2019. The second phase of the project for the renovation of the church's interior was planned to be partly funded by an international crowdfunding campaign.
After the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev visited the Holy Mother of God Church in Tsakuri, denying the church's Armenian identity, and describing the church's inscriptions in Armenian as "fake".