‘As a result of the inconsistency of Soviet Armenia, the entire territory of Shinishik-Ayrum was recognized as Azerbaijani,’ Human Rights Defender

In the context of border disputes, another example of territorial losses is connected with the Shinishik-Ayrum area and the Dilijan region, due to ignoring the rights of village residents and the requirements for a normal life, wrote the Human Rights Defender of Armenia, Arman Tatoyan, on his Facebook page.

“In particular, as a result of the inconsistency of Soviet Armenia, the entire disputed territory of the Shinishik-Ayrum region (11,659 desyatins) was recognized on January 11, 1927, as part of Azerbaijan's Qazakh district, while the disputed forest territory (4,000 desyatins) was recognized as part of the Armenian SSR's Dilijan region. Moreover, according to a decision by the commission determining land disputes in the districts that were part of the Transcaucasian Central Executive Committee, 5,000 desyatins of land located in the Shinishik-Ayrum region were handed over to Qazakh district from Dilijan on April 28, 1923.

However, later, Azerbaijani representatives, by threatening the forestry chief, violated the 1923 decision and seized about 7,000 desyatins of land, raising the total to 11,800 desyatins. As a result of this unfortunate solution for the population of Armenia and especially the villages, the village of Bashkend (later renamed Artsvashen) which was part of the Armenian SSR, ended up in Qazakh district. It was decided to separate a strip of land, a summer pasture, that would territorially connect the village to Dilijan. This was crucial from the perspective of the rights of the Armenian population of Bashkend.

Ultimately, a decision made during a meeting of the leadership of the Transcaucasian Central Executive Committee on February 18, 1929, confirmed the agreement of January 11, 1927, and connected Bashkend with the Armenian SSR via a narrow strip of land. In execution of that decision, 45 boundary markers were installed over a length of 40 km in the forest areas of Shinishik-Ayrum during 1929. A project was prepared to connect Bashkend village with adjacent areas to the Armenian SSR. The land use status of the village and Shinishik-Ayrum was researched, and approximately 4,844 hectares of disputed area were included in the plan.

The Central Executive Committee's decision also envisaged allocating a portion of the lands from the Shinishik-Ayrum region for use by the residents of Bashkend village. However, during the meeting of the Central Executive Committee on July 20, 1929, the proposal to allocate at least 0.75 hectares of land per person was rejected on the grounds of land scarcity. Those areas later remained in Azerbaijan's control (the history of violations of the rights of Artsvashen and the village population is separate).

Moreover, Azerbaijani authorities incited their population to write fictitious complaints against the Armenian SSR, thus exacerbating the issues. Typically, Azerbaijani villages, having penetrated into Armenian territory, would attempt to expand at the expense of Armenian villages. In the 1920s, Soviet Armenia lost territories, partly due to the fact that human rights, particularly the rights of peasants, were not placed at the center of decision-making, and inconsistency was demonstrated in this regard. It was not taken into account that the foundation of any border dispute should be to ensure the normal life of the border population. Of course, this was not considered by the Soviet leadership either,” Tatoyan wrote.