“GEGHARD”
SCIENTIFIC ANALYTICAL
FOUNDATION
2025
2025
About a month ago, blogger and traveler Max Vernik published a video on his YouTube channel titled Yerevan: The Ancient Kond District and the Persian Mosque." Weeks later, the video caught the attention of Azerbaijani media.
The pretext is the Tapabashi or Abas Quli khan mosque. The Western Azerbaijan Community and Azerbaijani media have raised an uproar, accusing Armenians of “destroying an Azerbaijani mosque” and expressing outrage that “the Armenian owner of the property has a restaurant there where even wine is served.”
The issue was further fueled by Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Iran, who attempted to incite anti-Armenian sentiment, stating: “Armenia insults the Azerbaijani mosque in Yerevan and offers alcoholic drinks to tourists.”
This uproar is accompanied by false claims that Yerevan and the Kond district are historically Azerbaijani.
Аn extremely vivid imagination is required to label these and other former mosques in Yerevan as Azerbaijani. On the other hand, this narrative perfectly aligns with Azerbaijan’s state policy of appropriating historical, religious, and cultural heritage, as well as its broader strategy of making illegitimate claims against Armenia.
The Tapabashi Mosque, along with several others, was built during the period of Persian rule over Yerevan. These are Shia and Persian mosques and have no connection to Azerbaijani culture.
Information about the mosque is scarce. An article titled “The Peculiarities of Urban Planning of Yerevan in the Period of Persian Domination” provides some details about the Tapabashi Mosque:
“The Kond (Tapabashi) Mosque was founded in 1687 in Yerevan and is one of the partially preserved mosques. It is currently used as a residential building. It is also known as the Abbas Quli khan Mosque. The Kond Mosque had two domes—one large and one small. It featured decorative brick cladding with rhombus-shaped ornaments. The entire mosque was built with bricks.”
One of the Azerbaijani propaganda resources also refers to the mosque, yet it does not label it as Azerbaijani. Likewise, Abbas Quli khan is not identified as an Azerbaijani figure.
In their propaganda toolkit, Azerbaijani authorities widely employ mirror accusations and mirror actions.
The Armenian side, along with international media and civil society organizations, has presented extensive evidence of how Azerbaijan is systematically destroying Armenian spiritual and cultural heritage in Artsakh or forcibly appropriating it by labeling it as Albanian or Azerbaijani.
In recent years, Azerbaijan has demolished the Green Chapel (Kanach Zham) in Shushi, the Church of the Holy Ascension in Berdzor, and other religious sites, while also erasing cemeteries. One of the most striking examples of Azerbaijani vandalism is the destruction of the Armenian khachkar (cross-stone) field in Nakhijevan.
The Armenian side has repeatedly appealed to UNESCO and other international organizations.
Azerbaijan frequently makes false accusations against Armenia. In a statement regarding the Kond Mosque, the “Western Azerbaijan Community” claimed: “The deliberate destruction of Azerbaijani cultural monuments by the Armenian side is a gross violation of international law, including the 1954 Hague Convention and relevant UNESCO decisions.… We call on UNESCO and other international organizations to take urgent steps, including putting pressure on Armenia…”
Kenneth Marcus, an American scholar, discusses the concept of “accusation in a mirror” in one of his articles. Marcus explains: The basic idea of AiM is deceptively simple: propagandists must “impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do.” It is a rhetorical technique in which one side falsely accuses the other of the very actions it intends to carry out. Marcus further emphasizes: “AiM has proven to be one of the central mechanisms by which genocidaires publicly and directly incite genocide.”
Azerbaijan has employed mirror accusation to justify starting wars, ethnically cleansing Artsakh, and carrying out cultural genocide. To conceal the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage, Baku resorts to loud accusations, blaming Armenia for allegedly destroying fictional Azerbaijani sites.
While Baku accuses the Armenian side of destroying Azerbaijani mosques, it often fails to show proper care for the mosques within its own territory. The "Geghard" Foundation has addressed this issue. Over the past decades, numerous mosques in Azerbaijan have been closed under various pretexts, including the Juma, Abu Bakr, Shehidler, Lezgian, and Ahl al-Sunni mosques, among others. The Azerbaijani authorities have also demolished several mosques. Among these were mosques located on the shores of the Caspian Sea in the "Oil Rocks" area, in the village of Peshtatuk in Lerik district, as well as others in Baku and various regions. In 2017, the decision to demolish the Haji Javad mosque sparked widespread public discontent in Azerbaijan, leading to protests. Ultimately, to avoid further public backlash and resistance, the mosque was demolished overnight. In parallel, many mosques in Azerbaijan have been left abandoned. For example, the mosque in the village of Goradil, located in the Absheron district, does not look like a mosque, while the interior is in a deplorable condition.
Some mosques are on the verge of collapse or are not functioning. For instance, the Shah Sultan Hussein mosque in Novkhana is in a semi-ruined condition. It has become a gathering place for drug addicts, while part of the mosque's surroundings has been turned into a landfill, and another part serves as grazing grounds for animals.
In lieu of summary
In recent days, amid the baseless uproar in Azerbaijan, it has become known that Azerbaijanis have destroyed the village of Mariamadzor in the Hadrut region of Artsakh, where the Church of Saint Minas (1601) is located.