The far-reaching goals of Iran, Armenia and Russia in the restoration of the Shusha mosque

Restoration work is underway in the Shusha mosque of Gevkhar-aga, the Internet resource Jamnews said. The correspondent of the publication was in the mosque and saw "several workers at the construction site, in front of the mosque, two boys were riding bicycles and one could hear two grandmothers talking from window to window on the top floor in a residential five-story building."

There was a feeling that they were building some kind of residential building. But minarets towered behind the scaffolding, and this view was completely new, one could say unique for post-war Karabakh," the journalist Albert Voskanyan described.

The Gevkhar-Aga mosque has long had no flock, and the point is not that it has been dilapidated for more than 25 years. When the restoration is finished, there will still be nobody to go to pray there. Then why they decided to invest in the restoration of the mosque, and not in additional residential buildings, a shopping center, or movie theater, asks the author of the article. "For us it is a matter of preserving the historical and cultural heritage, regardless of religious or cultural affiliation," says the head of the Department of Cultural Monuments of the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Nagorno-Karabakh Arman Grigoryan.

"Why did the Armenians begin to rebuild the mosque in Shusha, and not the mosque that they destroyed in Agdam? Because if they, perhaps, subconsciously agree to return to Azerbaijan several areas outside Nagorno-Karabakh, the city of Shusha, as a strategic military bridgehead, is not going to be returned, political analyst Elkhan Sainoglu told Turan.

In recent years, Armenians have been trying to restore infrastructure in Shusha, Kelbajar and Lachin, bringing Armenian repatriates from Arab countries to these areas in the hope that these lands will not be returned. Involving the Iranians in the restoration has the same goal that was pursued in Yerevan, where Iranian specialists also restored the mosque. The Armenians want to bring Iranian tourists to Nagorno-Karabakh, who, like in Yerevan, will pray in the Shusha mosque. However, Tehran understands that Nagorno-Karabakh is not Armenia, and Iranian tourists in Nagorno-Karabakh will become the reason for filing diplomatic notes from the Azerbaijani side. In the economic sense, Russia and Azerbaijan are more attractive to Iran than Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, so Tehran itself must oppose the visits of its citizens to Nagorno-Karabakh, Shainoglu said.

He recalled the sharp reaction of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry regarding the restoration of the Shusha mosque by the Armenians. The Armenians want to make show the world their categorical unwillingness to return Shusha to Azerbaijan. Our country must find other, more effective tools to put pressure on the aggressor, E.Shahinoglu said.

According to Jamnews, the Eastern Historical Heritage Armenian Foundation is responsible for the restoration work in Shusha, but the work is carried out in close cooperation with Iranian specialists with the support of the IKOMOS-Armenia and IKOMOS-Iran organizations. Initially, the IDeA Foundation, the so-called "government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" and the Armenian Fund for the Revival of the Eastern Historical Heritage, launched a joint program to restore the mosque. It was cleared and fenced. In 2017, Iranian specialists completed the restoration project. In January 2018, it was announced that the Kazakh businessperson Kairat Boranbaev was the main donor, Forbes Kazakhstan reported. According to this publication, in May 2019, Boranbaev ranked the 13th in the list of 50 richest businesspersons in Kazakhstan; also, he owns a McDonald"s network in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia. He has close family ties with Nursultan Nazarbayev - Boranbaev"s daughter Alina is married to the grandson of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev. The financing of the restoration is carried out not directly, but through the Armenian Foundation for the Development Initiatives of Armenia (IdeA).

Commenting on what is happening for Turan, political analyst Ilgar Velizadeh touched on the historical aspect. "Armenian historiography presents the period until 1818-1828 as the period when eastern Armenia was in the citizenship of Iran, and the Azerbaijani khans are not mentioned in Armenian textbooks and official history. In Tehran, the Azerbaijani khanates in northern Persia were also considered Iranian feudal principalities that arose during the weakening of the Persian Empire. Shusha, Karabakh and Irevan khanates, according to Iran and Armenia, are Iranian. It is important for Tehran to show that it has its own cultural, historical and material heritage on the territory of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. For Armenia, it is necessary to emphasize in all articles that there is nothing Azerbaijani in these territories.

Yerevan wants to prepare a place for Iran for specific projects in this region. The prototype of these projects may be the restoration of mosques in Iran and Shusha. The coincidence of interests of Armenians, Persians and Russia leads to such historical falsification and similar dubious restoration work, designed to retouch history. Those working in the mosque will try to erase the traces of Azerbaijanis in the history of the region and the mosque, just as some historians ignore documents and facts stored in the Russian Hermitage about the Azerbaijani contribution to the history of the region. The Hermitage kept an agreement between Russia and the Karabakh Khanate from 1805 on the entry of Karabakh into the Russian empire. Some Russian historians prefer to support the Iranian-Armenian version of the history of the region despite the signatures of Azerbaijani khans under documents on entry into the Russian empire. Based on these documents, the Gulistan and Turkmenchay Peace Treaties between Persia and Russia were subsequently signed. What is happening in Shusha now has a serious political background, supported outside the region, with the involvement of other countries," concluded Velizade.

The Gevkhar-Aga Mosque has the second, popular name in Shusha - "Upper", as it is located in the upper part of the city, writes Jamnews. Ashot Harutyunyan, a native of Shusha, head of the local history museum, said that there were 12 madrassas in Shusha. Now they are all in a dilapidated state.

The Upper Mosque in Shusha was rebuilt in 1883 by order of Gevhari Beyim-Aga, the granddaughter of Panah Ali Khan, the founder of the city of Shusha. The mosque was restored by the architect of Karbala Sefihan of Karabakh. Gevkhar-Aga has been planned in accordance with the tradition of the Karabakh mosques - stone columns create two-story galleries, which are covered by a semicircular dome. On the main facade of the mosque, inscriptions are preserved and are now being restored - surahs from the Koran in Arabic. In the Soviet years, the mosque was converted into a historical museum, was restored two times, and was in good condition. "So, in a year there the mullah will pray and convene Muslims to pray and call for the destruction of the Armenian population, as was the case in 1988-1990." "These are the usual flirting of the authorities with each other, nothing more - there is nothing but politics here. Everything else is just words. It was built by those who captured this country, why bother so much about the traces left by them, when our temples are dilapidated." "Thousands of families have no housing, but here they decided to spend money on the restoration of the mosque, it should be a shame." "Culture should not suffer from human conflict and hatred, even if the reasons are weighty. Now this mosque is the property of Artsakh, and saying that it should not be restored is a disregard for the cultural heritage of their country." "It is very correct that it is being restored! A true manifestation of Christianity! Respect and not ruin! This is a history, and it cannot be thrown out, they lived there, and this mosque is actually a decoration of the history of this city. "

"Azerbaijanis considered the mosque theirs and visited it. Now they do not live in Shusha, but this is not a reason to turn the temple into a stable, and demolish it."

"I am against the destruction of cultural monuments, wherever they are. Our temples in Iran are being restored and guarded, and they are very careful about the religion of others, why not do the same. What is the problem? It will be another place of interest," the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh answered the questions of the author of the publication in Jamnews. It is planned to complete the restoration of the Mosque by the end of 2019.