Zar School

Satellite imagery shows that between November 5, 2023 and June 1, 2024, the ruins of the school building of Zar/Tsar was demolished. Embedded in its walls were hundreds of fragments of medieval “spolia”, stone elements taken from nearby medieval Armenian monasteries, churches, and cemeteries that had been destroyed just a few years prior.

Between 1940 and 1950, during the era of Soviet anti-religious propaganda, Zar’s monasteries, churches, and old cemeteries were destroyed. Soviet Azerbaijan’s builders then used the debris from the destroyed Armenian monuments as spolia, inserting the medieval stones into the walls of the school. Read CHW’s full investigation of the Zar and Chirag schools at the link.