Free Republic

East of the NKR capital of Stepanakert, in Aghdam, archeologists uncovered remains believed to be part of a kingdom built by Armenian king (1st Century BC) Tigran the Great... The first stage of the excavations revealed a 33-meter long wall of one of the citadel terraces with huge polished stones, swallow-tailed couplings, a 5th to 6th century basilica and thousands of pottery, jewelry and casks. "The masonry with the swallow-tailed couplings is very important for dating for this construction technique is very typical to Hellenistic epoch, when the monolith blocs of stones joined by big metal couplings, were filled with...

During the second half of September 2012, several Armenian news agencies reported that Khojali Airport in Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Karabakh was about to be reopened (news.am, September 26). The Khojali Airport near Khankendi (also called Stepanakert in Armenian) was built in 1974 and was intended to serve flights from Baku. Since the outbreak of war in 1992, the airport has remained shut down, but in 2008, the Armenian government began undertaking reconstruction efforts. The airport’s capacity is planned to serve around 100 passengers per hour. In December 2011, the Armenian media reported that Eduardo Ernekyan, an Argentine businessman of...