Karmir Khach Church

One of the oldest churches in Karabakh, the original name of this medieval church is not preserved. It is known in Armenian as Karmir Khach, or “Red Cross”. According to a founding inscription, the church was built by the sister of Gagik I in the year 1000 “for the salvation of my soul and my parents.” Google Earth imagery shows that the foundations of the “Red Cross” church were dug into and dirt piled to the southwest between August 22, 2021 and February 2, 2025.

To narrow the timeframe, we turned to lower-resolution Sentinel 2 imagery which documents the appearance of a bright cluster of pixels (arrow A) between January 2 and February 1, 2025, marking the appearance of the back dirt pile from the excavations and confirming that digging took place in this date range.

CHW’s StoryMap at the link has full details of the impact to the site and the methodology used to narrow the impact window.