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The 1891 issue of the journal "Collection of Materials for the Description of the Localities and Tribes of the Caucasus" is entirely devoted to the chaftmanship of specific settlements in the governorates of Elizavetpol, Yerevan, Baku, Tbilisi, and Kutaisi, as well as the Dagestan region.
Elizavetpol governorate
The teachers at the Shushi school, Yakov Zedgenidze, Hambardzum Ter-Eghiazaryan, and teaching assistant Salah bek Zakhar Bekov, published a joint article on the craftmanship of Shushi. According to the 1886 statistical data, Shushi had a population of 30,945, consisting of 315 Russians, 18,690 Armenians, and 11,940 Tatars. The entire Shushi district had a population of 81,268, of which 37,089 were Armenians and 44,179 were Tatars.
The article also presents Shushi's carpet weaving and carpet production. Among the household crafts in Shushi, carpet weaving occupied the first place in both quantity and quality. It is noted that Shushi was also the leading producer of carpets and rugs in the entire Caucasus. Carpet weaving was practiced not only in Shushi but also in neighboring villages, as well as in the districts of Jebrail and Zangezur.
In Shushi, 57 workshops produced shoes, 26 of which employed Armenians, and 31 employed Tatars. There were 32 Armenian and 43 Tatar masters in these workshops. Shushi also had five leather factories, one of which belonged to Armenians, and the rest to Tatars. In these factories, 4 Armenians and 56 Tatars worked.
Bagir Ibrahimbekov, the inspector of the Aghdam school in the Shushi district, wrote that tailoring was a widespread craft in Aghdam. In the Aghdam market, apart from two Muslim workers, all others were Armenians. The community's blacksmiths were also Armenians.
Abraham Poghosov, the inspector of the Togh village school in Artsakh, presenting the handicrafts of the villages of Togh and Mukhrenes, notes that Togh had a population of 1,664, of which 1,422 were Armenians and 242 were Tatars. In Togh and the surrounding villages, wool production was primarily carried out by women.
Mukhrenes, an Armenian-inhabited village (316 people), was mainly engaged in timber cutting. According to A. Poghosov, Togh village had two factories for spinning yarn from cocoon, which were owned by N. Aharonov and A. Mughunov from Shushi.
The inspector of the Nukhi city school, Feofil Kobeshavidze, and the schoolteacher Ivan Golovnya, while presenting the handicrafts of Nukhi city, write that according to the data from the local district administration, the population of Nukhi in 1886 was 24,182, consisting of 5 Russians, 3,854 Armenians, and 20,323 Tatars. The first factory for brick production in Nukhi was opened by Shahbaghov in 1872. Of the 10 blacksmiths in the city, 4 were Armenians, and 6 were Tatars.
Georgi Israyelov, the supervisor of the two-year school in the village of Kasapet (2279 Armenian inhabitants) in the Jevanshir district, presents the crafts of the village. According to the author, there were 7 industrial enterprises for spinning in the Jebrail district.
Yusuf Bek Melik-Hakhnazarov, a teacher at the Elizavetpol city school, mentions that 31 Armenians, along with 24 Tatars and Christians, engaged in soap production in the city.
The crafts of Yerevan governorate
Georgi Popandopulo, a teacher at the Nukhi city school, Pavel Gorbanyev, Solomon Lashaurin, Nikolai Levkovich, K. Nikitin, and teaching assistant Stepan Ter-Stepanov at the Alexandropol city school wrote about the crafts of the city of Alexandropol. The city had a population consisting of 210 Russians (31 households), 528 Greeks (63 households), 20,240 Armenians (3,298 households), and 775 Tatars (95 households), making a total of 21,753 people across 3,487 households.
N. Fedorov, a teacher at the city school in the New Bayazet district, wrote that the population of the district was approximately 94,000. The population consisted of Armenians, Tatars, Russian dissenters, Kurds, and a small number of Greeks. The majority of the population were Armenians and Tatars. The Armenian merchants controlled the cattle trade.
The crafts of Baku governorate
The crafts of the Salyan town in the Javad district of Baku governorate are presented by Abraham Poghosov, a teacher at the local one-grade school. The village was predominantly Tatar, with a population of 12,117. It is worth noting that in this Tatar-dominated area, it was the Armenians who were advancing education process.
In the 1886 issue of Collection of Materials for the Description of Localities and Tribes of the Caucasus, Nikolai Kalashev, the headmaster of the two-grade school in Gökchay, describes Salyan and notes that Georgi khan Ter-Harutyunyan, based in Tiflis, was exploiting oil extracted from the land located 12 versts away.
According to Kalashev's data, silkworm breeding was developed in the 22 Tatar villages of the mountainous Lagich area in the Gökchay district, with a population of 6,747 people in 1,071 households, according to the 1886 census, as well as in 1 Russian and 6 Armenian villages, which had 682 households and 4,306 people in 1873.
The six Armenian villages engaged in silkworm breeding were Keshkhurt with 132 households and 868 people, Kelbend with 89 households and 455 people, Kirkh with 211 households and 1,200 people, Ushtal with 99 households and 812 people, Bozoband with 31 households and 194 people, and Yengi-kend with 107 households and 692 people (according to 1873 data).
These facts not only confirm the Armenian presence in these settlements but also highlight the significant role Armenians played in the craft industries of the region.