Armenikend

Ermenikend Azerbaijani: Ermənikənd
Non-official district
File:Baku - Armenikend 2005.JPG
File:Old Baku city.jpg

Ermenikend (Azerbaijani: Ermənikənd), was a former settlement and non-official name of a district which rose, then outside the city limits of the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku, and where mainly Armenians lived.

History

The Armenian community of Baku formed when the oil boom started in the late 19th century. That time Baku and Azerbaijan was a part of Czarist Russia and many Armenians from neighboring Armenia which was also part of Czarist Russia, move there. But the construction of Armenikend started later, when Baku futher expanded, when Azerbaijan, after a brief period of independance as the "Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan" during 1918-1920 with the collapse of Czarist Russia (and also Armenia which went through the same brief stage as well) was invaded and annexed by the Soviet Union as the newly formed "Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic" in 1920. The settlement became part, with the steady expansion of the city of Baku. Officially the district was part of a larger district named as "Shahumyan" after the Armenian Bolshevik leader Stepan Shaumyan who lived in Baku. Armenikend was designed to be the home of oil-workers. The Soviet architects Samoylov A.V. and Ivanitsky A.P supervised the architecture of Armenikend in the 1930's. The central part had 3-4 storied buildings in the style of Soviet socialist realist architecture (near the Mughan hotel). With the influx of many other nationalities and with the dispersal of the Armenian community to other districts of the city, the district lost this distinction and the nick-name gradually disappeared. After the violent seven-day Pogrom of Armenians in Baku during 13 January to 20 Janury in 1990, the entire Armenian community of Baku and the Armenian community of Azerbaijan fled the country.