A study on the history of Saral, an Azerbaijani village in present-day Armenia now known as Nor Khachakap, where mosque ruins and two Azerbaijani cemeteries remain, has been prepared as part of the "Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan" project.
Report informs that the article was published in The Perished Civilization.
The village's name was recorded as Saral during the Tsarist period and as Saral and Saralli during the Soviet period.
The village had been known as Saral for at least 160 years. In August 1991, it was renamed Nor Khachakap, which the publication describes as part of a policy of Armenianization and the erasure of Azerbaijani heritage in Armenia.
Since 1995, the village has been part of Lori Province of the Republic of Armenia. It is mentioned in an Ottoman source dating to the 18th century.
From the second half of the 18th century, the territory of the village formed part of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti. In 1801, Alexander I issued the Manifesto to the Georgian People, confirming the annexation of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti. The Georgian monarchy was abolished, and eastern Georgia became part of the Russian Empire. During the Tsarist period, the village was part of the Alexandropol Uyezd of the Erivan Governorate.
According to the sources cited, the village had 54 inhabitants in 1831, 539 in 1873 and 654 in 1886, all of whom were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis. In 1897, it had 763 inhabitants, 754 of whom were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis. In 1906, its 951 inhabitants were predominantly ancestors of the Azerbaijanis, while in 1908, all 951 inhabitants were ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.
The article states that on May 29, 1918, the government of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) ceded Erivan, present-day Yerevan, and several surrounding territories to the Armenians. It says the First Republic of Armenia was thereby established on land that had historically been inhabited by ancestors of present-day Azerbaijanis and, within the first few months of its existence, began to make territorial claims against its neighbors: Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye, then the Ottoman Empire.
According to the publication, between 1918 and 1920, Dashnaktsutyun, the nationalist party that held power in the Republic of Armenia, carried out ethnic cleansing of the Turkic population in the Erivan Governorate and in other areas, particularly in Zangezur, Karabakh and Nakhchivan.
The available written sources contain no reports of massacres of the Turkic population of Saral during this period, making it one of the few villages with no such incident documented.
The village was part of the Garakilsa District, later renamed the Kirovakan District, and subsequently was incorporated into the Spitak District.
According to the book Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War by British journalist and Caucasus specialist Thomas de Waal, in November 1988, the Azerbaijani residents of Saral were forcibly driven out under pressure from members of the Armenian SSR's security forces and armed groups.
In a 2007 article for the UK-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), Armenian journalist Naira Bulghadaryan described the state of two Azerbaijani cemeteries in Saral, noting that many gravestones had been damaged. According to the article, after the village was settled by Armenians, people arriving from other regions of Armenia took Azerbaijani gravestones from the cemetery for reworking or resale.
Between 2021 and 2024, extensive fieldwork was conducted across the territory of Armenia, including in remote mountainous regions. The research was undertaken in preparation for the book The Perished Civilization and focused on identifying and documenting surviving Azerbaijani heritage sites. During the fieldwork, two Azerbaijani cemeteries with several dozen surviving gravestones were discovered in the village. The ruins of a mosque and the Armudojag shrine were also found. At present, there is a cross at the entrance to the shrine.
The "Sites of Memory of Western Azerbaijan" project has collected and systematized information about nearly 600 villages in present-day Armenia once inhabited by ancestors of the Azerbaijanis. Some retain remnants of Turkic cultural and historical heritage, including cemeteries, shrines and mosques.