2025
2025
2025-11-17
The village of Mamrukh is located in the Zaqatala district, about 14 km southeast of the district center, Zaqatala.
The period of the Armenian village’s foundation is unknown. According to available data, in the mid-18th century the village’s population was forced to convert to Islam. As a result, the inhabitants were detached from the Armenian environment.
Nevertheless, Christian religious sites have been preserved in the village’s territory. One of them is a chapel located within the village, which, according to monument specialist Samvel Karapetyan, can be dated to the 15th–16th centuries based on its design and masonry features. The second shrine is located outside the village, in a nearby forested area. It is a circular-plan church with a diameter of 18.8 meters, surrounded by other chapels. In the 1980s, the church’s eastern apse and adjacent chapels were still standing. S. Karapetyan notes that the church was probably built between the 7th and 11th centuries. In Azerbaijan, this church is presented as “Albanian,” neglecting the fact that the settlement was Armenian for centuries.
Today, the village is still called Mamrukh and is inhabited by Lezgi-speaking Tsakhurs.
Bibliography
Karapetyan S. Aghvank Proper. Research on Armenian Architecture, Part 1, Yerevan 2024, pp. 83-84.
Marutyan T., The Church of Mamrukh (unpublished; “Tiran Marutyan Archive”: https://tiranmarutyan.am/documents.
Akhundov D., Architecture of Ancient and Early Medieval Azerbaijan, Baku, 1986, pp. 184–186.