Nakhchivan (Azerbaijani: Naxçıvan Azerbaijani pronunciation: [nɑxtʃɯˈvɑn]; Armenian: Նախիջևան, romanized: Naxijevan Armenian pronunciation: [naχidʒevˈan]) is the capital and largest city of the eponymous Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, a true exclave of Azerbaijan, located 450 km (280 mi) west of Baku. The municipality of Nakhchivan consists of the city of Nakhchivan, the settlement of Əliabad and the villages of Başbaşı, Bulqan, Haciniyyət, Qaraçuq, Qaraxanbəyli, Tumbul, Qarağalıq, and Daşduz. It is spread over the foothills of Zangezur Mountains, on the right bank of the Nakhchivan River at an altitude of 873 m (2,864 ft) above sea level.
Toponymy
The city's official Azerbaijani spelling is "Nakhchivan" (Azerbaijani: Naxçıvan). The name is transliterated from Persian as Nakhjavan (Persian: نخجوان). The city's name is transliterated from Russian as Nakhichevan' (Russian: Нахичевань) and from Armenian as Nakhijevan (Armenian: Նախիջևան, romanized: Naxijevan).
The city is mentioned in Ptolemy's Geography (2nd century AD) as Naxouána (Ancient Greek: Ναξουάνα). The older form of the name is Nakhchavan (Armenian: Նախճաւան). According to philologist Heinrich Hübschmann, the name was originally borne by the city and later given to the surrounding region. Hübschmann believed the name to be composed of Nakhich or Nakhuch (probably a personal name) and avan, an Armenian word (ultimately of Iranian origin) meaning "place, town".
In the Armenian tradition, the name of the city is connected with the Biblical narrative of Noah's Ark and interpreted as meaning "place of the first descent" or "first resting place" (as if deriving from նախ, nakh, 'first' and իջեւան, ijevan, 'abode, resting place') due to it being regarded as the site where Noah descended and settled after the landing of the Ark on nearby Mount Ararat. It was probably under the influence of this tradition that the name changed in Armenian from the older Nakhchavan to Nakhijevan. Although this is a folk etymology, Nakhchivan is referred to as Apobatērion ("place of descent") by the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus in connection with Noah's Ark, which would make the tradition connecting the name with the Biblical figure Noah very old, predating Armenia's conversion to Christianity in the early fourth century.
Early Islamic sources knew the city as Nashawā; but starting from the Buyid and Seljuk periods, forms like Nakhjavān, Nakhchevān, and Naqchevan were used.
History
Classical period
According to the Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi, King Tigranes I of Armenia settled Median prisoners of war at Nakhchivan in the second century BC. Nakhchivan is first mentioned in Ptolemy's Geographia as Naxuana (Greek: Ναξουὰνα).
Nakhchivan was destroyed by Shahanshah Shapur II in 363 and its Armenian and Jewish population was deported to Iran. Emperor Heraclius travelled through the city en route to Atropatene in 623 during the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628.
Medieval period
The Arab siege of Nakhchivan in 650 AD led Theodore Rshtuni to conclude a truce. After the rebellion of 703 AD Muhammad ibn Marwan had the rebel nobles burnt alive in churches in Nakhchivan and Goghtn in 705. Nakhchivan temporarily came under the control of the Bagratid Kingdom of Armenia in c. 900, but was swiftly taken by Muhammad ibn Abi'l-Saj. The city was the temporary refuge of Atabeg Nusrat al-Din Abu Bakr after his defeat at the Battle of Shamkor in 1195, and Nakhchivan was conquered by the Kingdom of Georgia in 1197.
The city and its surroundings were ruled either directly or indirectly by Zakarid Armenia from 1201 to 1350, but more often than not they only had partial independence and often were vassals of other empires. In 1225, Nakhchivan was occupied by al-Maleka al-Jalāliya, daughter of Atabeg Muhammad Jahan Pahlavan. In 1236 Nakhchivan was occupied by the Mongol Empire and later the Ilkhanate forcing Zakarid Armenia to pay taxes to the Mongol lords as well as owing them loyalty and troops. Genoese merchants were known to trade in the city by 1280. The city was conquered by Timur in 1401, but was taken by King George VII of Georgia in 1405.
Modern period
Nakhchivan was conquered by Shahanshah Ismail I in 1503. Shahanshah Abbas I of Persia reconquered Nakhchivan from the Ottoman Empire in 1603–1604. Later the city served as the capital of the Nakhichevan Khanate.
Nakhchivan Khanate was annexed to the Russian Empire per the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828. The city became the centre of the Nakhichevan uezd of the Erivan Governorate in 1849. In 1896, Nakhchivan had a population of 7,433, roughly two-thirds of which were Azeri-speaking Muslims and one-third Armenian Christians. According to the 1897 census, Nakhchivan had the status of a county town (Russian: у. г. / уездный город, romanized: u. g. / uyezdny gorod).
After the February Revolution of 1917, a soviet was formed in Nakhchivan, but the city was under the control of the Special Transcaucasian Committee from March to November 1917, and its successor the Transcaucasian Commissariat from November 1917 to March 1918. Turkey occupied Nakhchivan from June until November, after which the city was occupied by British soldiers in January 1919, and a military governor was appointed to administer Nakhchivan.
It was decided that Nakhchivan would be granted to Armenia on 6 April 1919, and the city was annexed on 6 June 1919, however, some months later the city became the center of a regional Muslim uprising and pogrom against its Armenian inhabitants. Britain, France, Italy, and the US, with approval from Armenia and Azerbaijan, agreed on 25 October 1919 to appoint American Colonel Edmond D. Daily as General-Governor of Nakhchivan, elections would be held, and both Armenia and Azerbaijan would withdraw its forces from the territory. However, in March 1920, Turkish forces led by Kâzım Karabekir occupied Nakhchivan.
Soviet Russia took control of Nakhchivan on 28 July 1920, and the city became part of the newly formed Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The Treaty of Moscow of 16 March 1921, and later the Treaty of Kars of 21 October 1921, between Soviet Union and Turkey agreed that Nakhicheva would be an autonomous territory under the protection of Azerbaijan and delimited its borders with Turkey. In February 1923, the city formed part of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Krai within the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), but later became the capital of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the ASSR in March 1924.
When Azerbaijan declared independence from the Soviet Union, Nakhchivan remained part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Following the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, a trilateral ceasefire was signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia. According to the agreement, Azerbaijan will gain a road access to Nakhchivan through Armenia which will be secured by Russian peacekeepers.
Since 9 June 2009, the Bulqan, Qaraçuq, Qaraxanbəyli, Tumbul and Haciniyyət villages of the Babek District are included in the scope of the administrative-territorial unit of the Nakhchivan city.
Ecclesiastical history
The bishop of Mardpetakan resided at Nakhchivan, and the Armenian historian Tovma Artsruni records Sahak Vahevuni as bishop of Nakhchivan and Mardpetakan and brother of Apusahak Vahevuni.
Geography
The city is spread over the foothills of Zangezur chain, on the right bank of the Nakhchivan River at an altitude of almost 1,000 metres (3,300 feet). The floods and soil erosion spiked because of the decreased forest cover along riverbanks. As a result, reforestation projects implemented in the city to encourage tree planting.
Climate
Nakhchivan has a continental semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk) with short but cold, snowy winters and long, dry, very hot summers.
Population
Nakhchivan is believed to have been populated by Armenians from ancient times. The 5th-century Armenian history Buzandaran Patmuiwnkʻ reports that the Armenian king Tigranes the Great (r. 95–55 BC) resettled Jews from Palestine to Nakhchivan, and that in the 4th century AD the Sasanian king Shapur II (r. 309––379) resettled 2,000 Armenian and 16,000 Jewish families from Nakhchivan to Iran. These numbers, though exaggerated, attest to Nakhchivan's status as a populous city at the time. According to Nina Garsoïan, the population of Nakhchivan appears to have remained predominantly Armenian in the early medieval period, as the Arab geographer Ibn Hawqal records Armenian as the language of the city in the tenth century; although Vladimir Minorsky and Clifford Edmund Bosworth write that the town "acquired a Muslim character" after the massacre of the Armenian nobles there in 705.
In the thirteenth century, the town's inhabitants were massacred by the Mongols, and William of Rubruck described it as "almost a wilderness" in 1253. It must have recovered quickly, as in 1339–1340 Hamdallah Mustawfi considered it "an attractive, flourishing place". According to Veronika Tsibenko, the Armenian population of Nakhchivan declined rapidly in the Seljuk period and especially after Timur's (r. 1370–1405) destructive conquest. In about 1500, the Kangarlu, a Turkic nomadic tribe of four to five thousand people, settled in Persian Armenia. The city suffered during the Ottoman-Safavid wars of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries; it was in ruins when visited by the travelers Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (in 1664) and Jean Chardin (in 1673). Most of the Armenian population died or was forcibly resettled during this period. The Safavid shah Abbas the Great (r. 1587–1629) deported 250,000 to 300,000 Armenians, as well as Muslims, from the Nakhchivan region deep into Persia in 1604. Later, under Shah Abbas II (r. 1642–1666), the Kangarlu returned to Nakhchivan.
Armenians returned to Nakhchivan under the terms of the Treaty of Turkmenchay of 1828, by which the city and the region came under Russian rule. At that time, per Russian estimates, there were 114 Armenian families, 392 Muslim families, and 285 Armenian immigrant families living in the city. By the end of the nineteenth century, Armenians made up about one-third of the population while Muslims made up two-thirds. The Nakhchivan region was a site of interethnic conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis from 1918 to 1920. As result, the proportion of the Armenian population decreased to 11–15 percent in 1926. By 1979, Armenians made up only 1.4 percent of the city's population. The remaining Armenian population of Nakhchivan departed as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the forcible population exchange between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Nakhchivan experienced significant emigration in the 1990s and 2000s to Turkey and the main part of Azerbaijan. According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan, the number of population of city was 63,800 in 2000. Per the latest Azerbaijani census in 2019, the population of Nakhchivan is 94,368, consisting of an urban population of 83,792 and a population of 10,576 in the rural settlements administered together with the city.
Economy
Traditionally, Nakhchivan was home to trade industry, handicraft, shoemaking and hatmaking by Azerbaijanis. These industries have been largely replaced. The restoration enterprises and development industry, liberalization of foreign trade and the extension of the customs infrastructure, which has been largely responsible for Nakchivan's growth in the last two decades, are now major parts of Nakchivan's economy.
Culture
The city has a wide range of cultural activities, amenities and museums. Heydar Aliyev Palace, which has a permanent local painting exhibition and a theatre hall for an audience of 1000 people, and a recently restored Soviet-time Opera Theatre where the Nakhchivan State Musical Drama Theatre realises theatre plays, concerts, musicals and opera.
Many of the city's cultural sites were celebrated in 2018 when Nakhchivan was designated an Islamic Culture Capital.
Architecture
The city is home Momine Khatun Mausoleum, Gulustan Mausoleum, Noah's Mausoleum, Garabaghlar Mausoleum, Yusif ibn Kuseyir Mausoleum, Imamzadeh mausoleum and Mausoleum of Huseyn Javid mausoleums.