The Edmondson Blog

Once a capital city with over 150,000 people Agdam, Azerbaijan has been variously treated as a ghost town, a no-man’s-land and a military buffer zone in a troubled area of the world.

In the 1990s it was vandalized and largely destroyed during Armenian occupation, its buildings looted and gutted and its mosque completely covered in graffiti.

Currently considered part of Armenia this husk of a city sits in the heart of an area that is at the core of conflicted set of nations from Russia in the north and Georgia in the northwest to Armenia and Iran in the soutwest and south. It also sits at the curious geographical intersection of Europe and Asia, ambiguously defined as being part of both or either one of these continents. Given turmoil in the region it is unlikely to be rebuilt anytime soon - if ever - and its citizens have been displaced in all directions with little likelihood of returning home.