Talk:Nagorno-Karabakh

This article contains content imported from the English Wikipedia article on Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. View the page revision history for a list of the authors.

Travel to Azerbaijan

Are there ary problems traveling to NK after visiting Azerbaijan ? If so, that should be mentioned.

No. I just asked in the ministry.--Muso (talk) 17:53, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

isIn

Unfortunately saying where Nagorno-Karabakh is located is a political minefield, and "isIn|Caucasus" is probably the best way out. Basically, the Azeris say its theirs, but it's populated by a bunch of Armenians who have a self-proclaimed republic recognized by nobody and the only way to get in is via Armenia. (WT-en) Jpatokal 05:47, 20 August 2006 (EDT)

Whatever works. -- (WT-en) Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 06:55, 20 August 2006 (EDT)

Official names

It is the long-standing policy of Wikivoyage that we do not default to official names for destinations, but rather to the name that is most useful for the traveler. In most cases, the cities and town in Karabakh are today most commonly known in English under the Armenian names, but honestly, none are well known among English speakers anyway. The one and only exception I can think of is Shusha, which is famous enough for its long history and culture that the Azeri version has remained the most common in English usage (by a factor of 3x, according to Google searches for Shusha + Karabakh vs. Shushi + Karabakh, limited to pages in English).

What is more important, from the traveler's point of view, is that all road signs in Karabakh use the Armenian names, not the Azeri names. Moreover, being occupied by the ethnic-Armenian government of Nagorno-Karabakh, these cities are uniformly referred to using the Armenian names, and a traveler who uses the Azeri names could actually run into trouble, as this is a politically sensitive matter. It is perfectly fine to include the Azeri translation in parentheses on the actual destination page, as per our policy on foreign names. But these links should remain as I have left them, per the linked policies above. Further "Azerifications" are not useful to the traveler, and therefore have no place on Wikivoyage, IMO. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 11:59, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

This was already the long-standing policy in 2008. It's 10 years more long-standing now. The name of this article shouldn't be changed as long as practically no-one in the English-speaking world has heard of Artsakh. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:27, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Thank you for restoring the common name. If common usage shifts to "Artsakh", then it would make sense to change the article name, but not until then. Ground Zero (talk) 02:54, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Article

Reuters says no settlement likely soon. [1] Pashley (talk) 16:18, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Claimed land on map

Can we please get rid of the green color on the map for land claimed by the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic but controlled by Azerbaijan, and just show that land as part of Azerbaijan? The entire area of Karabakh is claimed by (and internationally recognized as part of) Azerbaijan, so showing what territory N-K claims is probably particularly useless and inappropriate for a travel guide. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:04, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree. From the traveler's prescriptive: That land is part of Azerbaijan, not Nagorno-Karabakh. I'm guessing the only reason the map shows the claimed land in the first place, is that it wasn't designed for Wikivoyage. To projects like Wikipedia: Claimed land actuality matters.

However, by the same "From the traveler's prescriptive" standard: Nagorno-Karabakh probably should be removed from the Azerbaijan map. And the map on Destinations should probably show the unrecognized states. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 04:21, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:40, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Never dealt with. Would anyone like to fix the map? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:36, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Done. Ceever (talk) 04:52, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:20, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Country renamed

Apparently the country has been officially renamed this year or last. Should we follow suit and rename the article? Hobbitschuster (talk) 00:04, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

No. Only when the new name is more widely used in English. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:55, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Safety

Is this area safe to visit as of 2018? It is difficult finding official information on safety for disputed territories. Marathonian (talk) 19:10, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

It is safe as long as you do not approach the border with Azerbaijan and make sure that you stay on the roads (mines may be still around). You have to register with the authorities and give them an exhaustive list of places that you plan to visit (places like Agdam are usually not allowed because of the mines and proximity to the border). : Perhaps the main threat is that you should not travel to Azerbaijan afterwards. They will refuse the entry or worse. --Alexander (talk) 20:50, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

New Conflict

It appears that within the last couple of days, Armenian and Azeri forces have exchanged fire. Some of the Armenian settlements in the Nagorno-Karabakh region were attacked and at least one Azeri soldier and a couple of Azeri helicopters were downed by Armenian forces. Just one sourceː 1. I guess we will have to monitor the situation. Lazarus1255 (talk) 05:49, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Obsolete text

Isn't this text obsolete?

It is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but is closely linked to Armenia and accessible only through Armenia.

I think the currently accurate version would be:

It is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but parts of it are closely linked to Armenia and accessible only through Armenia.

We will probably have to go through the article and change various wordings to reflect the current situation, which is that the self-claimed independent country of Artsakh has lost land and is going to lose more land soon. Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:04, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd say let's wait until the dust settles, and we can clearly see on the ground which part of the region is ruled by whom and how much travelling is possible (corona issues aside). Then we may have to divide this guide in two; one for the area (directly) ruled by Azerbaijan, and one for that by the Armenians. Vidimian (talk) 00:24, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Right. But maybe we could at least hide text that's clearly not accurate anymore. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

We can save a permanent link to the current version here on the talk page, and then feel free to simply remove everything that is "clearly not accurate anymore", leaving enough to give needed context, and anything that might become true again. Anyone can then compare with the now current version and salvage if anything should have been kept (as is or as rewritten). –LPfi (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Yep. So, any further objections to making the change I proposed above? Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:43, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Note that some areas that recently went under Azerbaijan control fall into existing Southern Azerbaijan's districts (Agdam and Fusuli). It might make more sense to include them into Southern Azerbaijan rather than in an eventual "Karabahk (Azerbaijan)" (or something like that) section. --Krauser levyl (talk) 02:55, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Noted, and thank you for the information. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:07, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Deletions

Shouldn't some of this deleted content (with edits as appropriate) by moved, rather than deleted? Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:12, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Shall we then create "Karabakh (Azerbaijan)" such that the content from the deleted links doesn't become orphaned? As I mentioned before there will be some initial confusion between Southern Azerbaijan and the new region, but better than orphaned content I guess. --Krauser levyl (talk) 02:47, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

It should be somewhere. If some of these attractions are in other known parts of Azerbaijan now, they should go there, but we do need to have them somewhere - if nowhere else, on this talk page for now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:13, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Moved most of it to Southern Azerbaijan, the rest propably belongs into the Ganja region. Cheers Ceever (talk) 12:55, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed Ceever's comment and I created a stub Karabakh (Azerbaijan) section. I won't have much time to do much about it in the coming days, so feel free to keep it or revert it as you see appropriate. --Krauser levyl (talk) 17:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Obsolete info

🤔🤔

Isn't basically everything other than the See section now obsolete? Wikipedia's info is confusing too, but it seems like Azerbaijan controls the whole of the area now, in which case it should be merged with Karabakh (Azerbaijan)? Or is the self-proclaimed republic government still in control of Stepanakert and surrounding areas? Basically, I'm trying to avoid trying to make two banners 😅 --Travelwriter1000 (talk) 20:39, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

@Travelwriter1000: The unrecognised, self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh still controls around 2/3 of the Nagorno-Karabakh region (pale color in map). Though the region has absolutely no tourism since the war since Russians now control the remaining parts of the region and don't allow access to any foreigners. So, it might be best to merge the two. CuriousGolden (talk) 20:45, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Well, Covid measures and Russian military aside, you can't travel between the Armenian- and Azerbaijani-controlled areas without going through Iran or Georgia first, so I would rather keep them seperate. Vidimian (talk) 23:29, 19 August 2021 (UTC)

Merge

Since Azerbaijan has effectively taken over the whole area and the de facto republic is set to dissolve, it would make sense to merge it into Karabakh (Azerbaijan) and move it to just Karabakh. Champion (contribs) 05:04, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Maybe – I'd like to hear what others think before making a decision. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 05:25, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Is the area around Stepanakert effectively separate from Azerbaijan until the end of the year in any real way? Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:58, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I assume we should breadcrumb the article to Azerbaijan, as it is under their de jure and de facto control, but the merger risks getting very confused if done before the area is integrated into Karabakh (Azerbaijan) on the ground. I assume things are settled in the latter. Hm, maybe not: the latter article says "As of December 2020, all cities of the region are ghost towns". If the situation still is the same, i.e. that we also cannot tell anything for sure about that area, then merging does little harm – but neither does having separate articles with little usable content as long as we cannot recommend any tourist to visit. I think it makes more sense to do the merger only when we actually can write a more or less clean article. –LPfi (talk) 08:04, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

But the problem is that while we can easily justify covering de facto independent countries as independent countries in the interests of travelers, by continuing to treat a former de facto country that was reoccupied by the de jure sovereign as independent by having an article about it, we really look bad. I can't see any justification for that. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:16, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

OK. Feel free to go ahead on the merger, if you think that breadcrumbing the area to Azerbaijan (and editing accordingly) isn't enough. I am just afraid that it is very difficult to see what info is still relevant and where to write "as of 2020" and where "as of 2023". Also, I think we shouldn't spend to much time on these articles before we actually can say something useful. –LPfi (talk) 09:20, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, we should merge it. Azerbaijan has won the war and now controls the area, and there is no realistic prospect of that changing anytime soon. The dog2 (talk) 18:02, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I did the merge/redirect. We should now discuss whether to redirect Karabakh to Southern Azerbaijan. On the face of it, that seems sensible. I'll start a thread at Talk:Karabakh. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:57, 19 October 2023 (UTC)