StepanakertStepanakert is the largest city and capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The city comprises about 50,000 Armenians. The entire Azerbaijani population fled the city during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. The modern city was founded in 1917 after the October revolution in place of a village that was called Khankendi (Khan's village) in Azerbaijan. In 1923 it was renamed to Stepanakert, to honor Stepan Shahumyan, an Armenian communist leader from Baku and was made the capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. During the Soviet era, Stepanakert grew to become the region's most important city. During the war, the city suffered immense damage from Azeri bombardment. The city's economy was greatly damaged during the war, but in recent years, largely due to the investments of the Armenian diaspora, economic activity, and thus tourism in the NKR, has picked up in Stepanakert. |
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