Armenikend

Ermenikend Azerbaijani: Ermənikənd
Non-official district

Ermenikend (Azerbaijani: Ermənikənd), was a non-official name of a district in Baku, and where many 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, moved there. But the construction of Armenikend started later, when Baku further expanded, when Azerbaijan, after a brief period of independence 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 "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 1930s. 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 Armenian pogroms on January 13–15, 1990, the Armenian community of Baku fled the country.