Shusha
Shusha is a city with a very beautiful nature located in Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucuses. Shusha had been a pearl of not only Azerbaijan but also a pearl of Caucasus . Shusha is situated in the Karabakh mountains and it was a mountain recreation zone during the Soviet era.
The town of Shusha was found by Panah Ali khan Javanshir — The first ruler of Karabakh khanate, in 1752 and was the capital of Karabakh khanate. This town is considered to be cultural capital for Azerbaijan. Shusha used to also be called Panahabad after the name of its founder. Shusha used to be not only the capital of Karabakh Khanate also one of the cultural and musical centers of the south Caucasus. Over a period, it became home to many Azerbaijani intellectuals, poets, writers, musicians ( the ashigs, mugham singers, kobuz players ) such as : Khurshidbanu Natavan (one of the best poets of Azerbaijan),Jafargulu agha Javanshir (an Azerbaijani public figure and poet) Gasim bey Zakir (an Azerbaijani poet and one of the founders of the critical realism and satirical genre in Azerbaijani literature),Uzeyir Hajibeyov (an Azerbaijani composer, conductor, publicist, playwright, and social figure)
The symbol of Shusha was Khari Bulbul, a very beautiful and unique flower which grows only in the mountains of the city , and grows nowhere else in the world.
Before the war, the population of Shusha was over 15 thousand and moreover, 98 percent of the population was ethnically Azerbaijani turks but since, there was a mass ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis in Karabakh, now there is no single Azerbaijani living in that city.
Due to the fact that there were times when Azerbaijanis were the majority, mosques,madrasas and other historical Azerbaijani monuments can be found there. After the war, Armenians completely destroyed roughly 600 historical-architectural monuments, including the castle of Panahali khan , house of Khurshidbanu Natavan ,31 libraries , 8 museums, including Shusha History Museum , Karabakh History Museum , Azerbaijan carpet museum. Not only that , Armenians changed some historical monuments in Karabakh to erase Azerbaijani history in Karabakh. Although, the large amount of monuments in Shusha were destroyed and vandalized, there still exist some traces of Azerbaijanis in Shusha that could come to this day such as : Ashagi Govhar, Yuxari Govhar and Xoja Marjanli mosques.
