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Country  Azerbaijan (de jure)
 Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (de facto)
Raion Shusha Raion2
Province Shushi Province3
 • Mayor; Head of Shusha Executive Power3 Karen Avagimyan;
Highest elevation
1,800 m (5,900 ft)
Lowest elevation
1,400 m (4,600 ft)
 • Total 3,191

1Unrecognized country
2According to Azerbaijan administrative division
3According to NKR administrative division
4Azeri government functions in exile[2]

Construction of the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral was completed in 1887.

Shusha also known as Shushi (Armenian: Շուշի) is a town in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The city was also a major center of Armenian cultural and economic life until the World War I.[3] Along with Tbilisi; it was one of the two main Armenian cities of the Transcaucasus and the center of a self-governing Armenian principality in the 1720s.[4] It also had religious and strategic importance to the Armenians, housing the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral, the church of Kanach Zham and serving (along with Lachin district to the west) as a land link to Armenia.


After serving as a town and an ancient fortress in the Armenian Principality of Varanda,[5][6] Shusha was turned into the capital of the Karabakh khanate. According to other sources, Shusha was founded in 1750-1752 (according to other sources, 1756-1757) by Panah-Ali khan Javanshir (r. 1748-1763), the founder and the first ruler of the independent. The first capital of the Karabakh khanate was castle of Bayat, built in 1748 in the district of Kebirli. However, soon afterwards Panah Ali khan realized that in order to secure himself and his newly-established khanate from external threats, and especially from the invasions from Iran, he needed to build a new more reliable castle. Shusha was a popular mountainous-climatic recreation resort in the Soviet Union. After the anti-Armenian Shushi Massacres in 1920 it became the only large settlement in the Soviet autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh (1921-1991) with predominantly non-Armenian population. On May 8-9, 1992 the city was captured by Armenian armed forces.


  1. Results of 2005 census of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
  2. [1] Embassy of Azerbaijan in Austria
  5. Bournoutian, George A. Armenians and Russia, 1626-1796: A Documentary Record. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2001, page 133, (Kekhva Chelebi’s Report to the Collegium of [Russian] Foreign Affairs (17 December 1725)
  6. Цагарели А. А. Грамота и гругие исторические документы XVIII столетия, относяшиеся к Грузии, Том 1. СПб 1891, ц. 434-435. This book is available online from Google Books.

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