SUSHI, Nagorno-Karabakh (Hetq)–Two rare original photos of Karabakh, depicting the town of Shushi after the 1920 massacre of Armenians, have been discovered by the Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute.
The panoramic photos were taken from different observation points in the town. In one of them, the church of St. Amenaphrkich Ghazanchetsots Church is surrounded by ruined houses and buildings. The other photo depicts the burned and ruined Armenian quarter of the city with Kanach Zham Church.
On March 23, 1920, the ruling Musavat party of Azerbaijan organized Armenian pogroms in Shushi and its surrounding villages. Khosrov bek Sultanov, appointed Karabakh governor by the Azerbaijani government, carried out a plan to eliminate the Armenian presence in the region by organizing massacres of local Armenians and the looting and burning of the Armenian neighborhoods.
More than 10,000 Armenian were killed in the ensuing pogroms.