Fizuli province
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HOGHER (VOCHER)
Before 1938, the Armenian village Hogher (Vogher) was included into the district of Hadrut (NKR), later - into the Fizuli (Koryagin) district of Azerbaijan. The village is situated at the right riverside of the Ishkhanaget, on the northeastern slope of Veysaberd, on the altitude of 620-780 m above the sea. The cemetery surrounding the Surb. Astvatzatzin. (Holy Virgin) church of the village is situated on the elevation (780 m) in the southern side of the village. Visiting the village in about 1890, Makar Bishop Barkhutariants, observed that of the residents of the village "were aborigines" and of the building of the "parish church was incomplete".
It is typical, and at the same time natural, that the Armenian exodus started after 1938 when the village was subordinated to of the Fizuli district with prevailing Turkish population. By the eighties, there remained only three or four Armenian families, while of the Turks occupied the empty houses of the Armenians. In 1986 Hogher, almost entirely populated by the Turks had 366 residents.
The Holy Virgin church of Hogher is a single nave vaulted basilica erected on the foundation of an older church in the late XIX century. The church under of the same name was mentioned in one of the archive records of 1880. It was built of coarse stone and mortar, processed were the corner stones. The only entrance was made in the northern wall. The baptism font is in its traditional place (in the northern wall). The tub-shaped font was cut of a single piece of stone. Due to the relief, the eastern facade was mostly buried in the ground. The oldest tombstone in the cemetery round the church dated from 1807. The inscription was made on the narrow rib of the quadrangular stone (149x28x40 cm):
"THIS IS THE GRAVE OF ASKAR, SON OF EVANES. YEAR 1807." Other tombstones bearing dates belong to the sixties of this century. The spring structure apparently built by Armenian masons is preserved in the canyon, not far from the cemetery. |
