The Kanach Zham Church in Shushi has been partially destroyed

A video posted on the Internet by an Azerbaijani user shows the Kanach Zham Church in Shushi partially destroyed. It can be seen that the dome and the bell tower of the church have been almost completely destroyed.

The video was posted on Facebook on November 15 by a user named Sevinc Asadullayeva. It is unknown when it was filmed, but probably after the statement signed between Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia on November 10.

Fip.am tried to locate the place where the video was shot to find out whether the structure in the video is Kanach Zham Church in Shushi.

A number of buildings in the video match the satellite photos of the buildings around the church. The video shows the Kanach Zham Church and at least five adjacent buildings:

1) a multi-storey residential building,

2) three pavilions in the yard of that apartment building,

3) a building with a red roof,

4) the Kanach Zham church,

5) a pavilion,

6) a destroyed building next to the church.

These buildings coincide with the buildings adjacent to the Kanach Zham Church seen in the satellite image available on Google Earth.

And that the building in the video is the Kanach Zham Church in Shushi can be proved through the comparison of the photos taken before the destruction.

The first photo shows the four windows on the south facade of the church, and the main entrance on the west side.

Below is another photo of the church, in which the four windows of the south facade of the church are clearly visible.

The Kanach Zham Church in Shushi was built in 1818. Before the recent war in 2020, it was one of the city’s two functioning churches. It is older than the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi, but less famous.

Hovhannes Nazaretyan