Oğuz (city)
Oğuz | |
|---|---|
City & municipality | |
Clockwise from top: Houses in Oghuz; AFRA Hotel; Ashaghi Mahalla Synagogue; Street in Oghuz; History museum (former Church of Saint Elisæus); View of Oghuz | |
Oğuz Oğuz | |
| Coordinates: 41°04′15″N 47°27′30″E / 41.07083°N 47.45833°E | |
| Country | Azerbaijan |
| District | Oghuz |
| Established | 1968 |
| Elevation | 630 m (2,070 ft) |
| Population (2010)[1] | |
• Total | 7,002 |
| Time zone | UTC+4 (AZT) |
| Area code | +994 024 |
Oğuz (Oghuz) is a city, municipality and the capital of the Oghuz District of Azerbaijan. The village was mainly populated by Armenians and Udis before the exodus of Armenians from Azerbaijan after the outbreak of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.[2]
Etymology
The name Oghuz comes from the Oghuz Turks, which Azerbaijanis are a part of.
Before 1991 the town was called Vartashen (Armenian: Վարդաշեն), which means town of roses in Armenian; 'Vard' meaning rose and 'shen' meaning town or village. This is in reference to the abundance of roses that naturally grow in this place.[3] A colophon on Armenian manuscript dating to 1466[4] suggests possibly earlier bilingual variants of the name: Giwlstan (Armenian: Գիւլստան), and Vardud (Armenian: Վարդուդ).
The town was renamed to Oghuz in 1991 during the expulsion of the Armenian and autochthonous Udi-speaking population.[2][5]
Population
Until 1991, Vartashen was mainly a Udi village, where the Vartashen dialect of the Udi language was spoken by about 3000 people in the 1980s. The Udis of Vartashen belonged to the Armenian and Gregorian Church and had Armenian surnames.
During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, most Udis of the town were expelled by the local activists of Popular Front of Azerbaijan. The Udis, bearing Armenian names and belonging to both the Armenian and the Gregorian Church, had been viewed as Armenians and hence suffered the same fate as other Armenians in Azerbaijan. Some 50 Udi people remained in the town.[2]
There were also Tat-speaking Mountain Jews in Vartashen. Most of them have emigrated to Israel, but possibly 80 have stayed.[6][7]
Climate
| Climate data for Oghuz(WMO ID: 37668, normals for 1964-1991) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Average precipitation mm (inches) | 44.6 (1.76) |
50.6 (1.99) |
80.9 (3.19) |
94.2 (3.71) |
102.5 (4.04) |
96.8 (3.81) |
60.4 (2.38) |
54.5 (2.15) |
65.6 (2.58) |
95.9 (3.78) |
64.7 (2.55) |
45.9 (1.81) |
856.6 (33.75) |
| Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in) | 9.2 | 10 | 14.7 | 12.4 | 12 | 8.9 | 6.4 | 6.3 | 8 | 10.4 | 9 | 8 | 115.3 |
| Source: NCEI[8] | |||||||||||||
Notable people
- Movses Silikyan (1862–1937), Armenian general
- Agiya Nakhchivanli (1950), Azerbaijani politician
- Stepan Pachikov (1950), Russian software engineer
- Anwar Seyidov (1949–2025), Azerbaijani lawyer
See also
References
- ^ World Gazetteer: Azerbaijan – World-Gazetteer.com
- ^ a b c Wolfgang Schulze: Towards a History of Udi. Archived 2020-12-04 at the Wayback Machine International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics 1, 2005, pp. 55–91.
- ^ Jost Gippert «Relative Clauses in Vartashen Udi Preliminary Remarks» «Iran and the Caucasus» Brill Publishers 2011. Стр. 208: The Armenian-based etymology given there (Arm. vard 'rose' and šēn 'village', i.e. 'rose-village') seems first to have been proposed by A. Berger (Berže) as it is also found in Seidlitz 1863: 171 (where, however, the name is spelt 'Wartaschîn'). The Udi pronunciation of today is vartašen.
- ^ "Colophons of Armenian Manuscripts (1466)". digilib.aua.am (in Armenian). Archived from the original on 2021-06-05. Retrieved 2021-06-04.
- ^ "Azərbaycan Respublikasının Bakı, Gəncə və Sumqayıt şəhərlərinin, Abşeron, Ağdaş, Ağsu, Ağcabədi, Balakən, Bərdə, Beyləqan, Vartaşen, Quba, Qutqaşen, Daşkəsən, İmişli, Yevlax, Kəlbəcər, Kürdəmir, Gədəbəy, Goranboy, Laçın, Lerik, Lənkəran, Mirbəşir, Puşkin, Saatlı, Füzuli, Cəbrayıl və Şamxor rayonlarının, Dağlıq Qarabağ Muxtar Vilayəti Şuşa rayonunun inzibati ərazi bölgüsündə qismən dəyişikliklər edilməsi haqqında AZƏRBAYCAN RESPUBLİKASI ALİ SOVETİNİN QƏRARI". www.e-qanun.az. Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
- ^ Sarah Marcus: Mountain Jews. Archived 2018-01-19 at the Wayback Machine Tablet, Tbilisi, 18. Januar 2018.
- ^ Michael Zand: Language and Literature. In: Liya Mikdash-Shamailov: Mountain Jews: Customs and Daily Life in the Caucasus. The Israel Museum (Muzeon Yisrael), Jerusalem 2002, p. 37. Archived 2018-01-19 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Global Summary of the Month (GSOM): Vartashen, AJ" (CSV). ncei.noaa.gov. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. p. 1. Retrieved 4 December 2025.
External links
41°04′15″N 47°27′30″E / 41.07083°N 47.45833°E