Czech photographer Stepan Lohr visited the ruins of the Azerbaijani city of Agdam in 2011. Nearly a decade later, as Azerbaijani forces retake the city from Armenian forces that held it for more than 25 years, he recalls what he saw on his lonely visit.
No-Man's-Land: Inside Azerbaijan's Ghost City Of Agdam Before Its Recapture
- By RFE/RL
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This is Agdam, an Azerbaijani town that was captured by ethnic Armenian forces in 1993, during the first Nagorno-Karabakh war.
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The destroyed city was near the front line of the simmering conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces for decades after the war ended in 1994. Once home to tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis, they fled their homes as the Armenian forces captured it.
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A photo from Agdam in 1988, shortly before war broke out between Azerbaijani and ethnic Armenian forces over the regions in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, the breakaway Azerbaijani region.
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A rare archival photo of the central mosque of Agdam in 1990. Armenians did not inhabit the city after the Azerbaijanis fled and it lay in ruins.
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The same mosque, minus its roof, photographed in 2011 by Lohr
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A view from Lohr's taxi during the hasty visit he made in 2011. While traveling through Nagorno-Karabakh, the Prague-based photographer told RFE/RL that he visited the off-limits city "out of curiosity."
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The photographer told RFE/RL he paid "quite a lot of money" for a well-connected taxi driver to check with his military contacts before taking him into the ghost town.
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The minarets of the main mosque tower over the rest of the devastated city.
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A Soviet-era mural still stands amid the city ruins. Lohr says he was told to move quickly to avoid Azerbaijani snipers that sometimes worked in the surrounding areas.
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The neglected and damaged interior of Agdam's once-glorious mosque.
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An Armenian- and English-language sign outside the mosque describing it as a "Persian" mosque built in the years 1868-70.
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The view from one of the minarets of the mosque. Lohr says the city was totally empty and he met only "some wild dogs" roaming the streets.
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The ruined city as viewed by Lohr. From his base in Prague, he has been following the latest conflict that broke out in September and which has resulted in seven Azerbaijani regions being retaken or handed over to Baku.
![Azerbaijani servicemen pose in front of the Agdam mosque in a propaganda video after the town returned to Azerbaijani control on November 20. Lohr says he is "curious how it will look now" and wonders "what the Azerbaijanis will do with [Agdam]." Thousands of displaced Azerbaijanis have vowed to return and rebuild it.](https://gdb.rferl.org/94d5a5e3-f802-41ce-a540-b66aa94ed25e_w1024_q10_s.jpg)
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Azerbaijani servicemen pose in front of the Agdam mosque in a propaganda video after the town returned to Azerbaijani control on November 20. Lohr says he is "curious how it will look now" and wonders "what the Azerbaijanis will do with [Agdam]." Thousands of displaced Azerbaijanis have vowed to return and rebuild it.
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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his wife -- who is also the country's vice president -- pose with a Koran inside the main mosque on November 22. Lohr adds that he is "of course worried because it's not easy to overcome all these emotions connected to the war" with "so many injustices happening there."
