ARTSAKH HISTORICAL MONUMENTS

Yeznaratzants 5 — 16 cc․ Monuments

NKR (Country) / Karvajar (District) / Yeznaratzants (Village)

Location
1214 y․

Based on the building inscription of Dadi Vank dated 1214, we may assume that Yeznaratzants was a village situated rather close to Apahen, or in any case not too far of it. Actually, 4 km southeast of Apahen, at the left bank of one of the full right tributaries of the Dukhtu river, where the forest ends giving way to Alpine meadows, there is a small village called Chovdar. We are convinced that this should be the historical Yeznaratzants, the name of which has been literally translated (Yeznaratzants means the place of ‘oxen grassing’, or ‘ox shepherd’, while Pers. ‘Chovdar’ means ‘stockbreeder’).

Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 66.

Historical Introduction
1214 y․

These two historical villages were recorded for the first time in the bequest to be inherited by the monastery, later as its estate in the building inscription of Dadi Vank, dated 1214: “...And we assigned a village and a settlement within their borders: Apahen and Yeznaratzants as the bequest of the church...”

"Corpus", Issue 5, compiled by S. Barkhudarian, Yerevan, 1982, p. 199; Samvel Karapetian, Armenian Cultural Monuments in the Region of Karabakh, Yerevan, 2001, p. 65.

14 c․

Etymology

Name	Year/Century	Etymology
Chovdar	1812 — 1920 yy․