Western Azerbaijan Heritage

It is located in Zangazur ma­hal, Gafan dist­rict, 7 km north of the district center, near Shaharjik vil­lage on the left bank of Okchu river. 

The name of the village of Sha­harjik has been changed. In Ar­menian sources, it is mentioned in the form Shharjik.

Architec­ture

In 1965, the historians of the Armenian Aca­demy of Scien­ces considered it theirs and registered it as Vahanavank (Church of Va­han) instead of Vang.

During the Middle Ages, a number of his­torical monuments in Zangazur were artificially falsified, calling them Chris­tian churches and temples, and an at­tempt was made to prove that only Ar­menians lived in this land in the 7th-10th centuries. The strangest thing is that even after knowing that the temples do not belong to Armenians, they do not want to admit it, on the contrary, they register them at the state reserve level. In 1965, historians of the Armenian Aca­demy of Sciences named the ruins of a building consisting of several rooms in the residential area of the village called Vang, 4 km away from Shaharjik village in Gafan district, calling it Vahanavank (Vahan church) and not Vang. However, on one of the stones of that monument, the following words are written in Gra­bar (ancient Armenian language): "This monument was built by the daughter of the Albanian khan Sanakarim in 913". The inscriptions on the stone of the temple built by Sanakarim's daughter from the Albanian rule confirm that it is an Albanian temple.

On one of the stones of the mo­nument, the following words are writ­ten in Grabar (ancient Arme­nian language): "This monu­ment was built by the daughter of the Albanian tsar Sanaka­rim... in 913". This statement confirms that the territory and the monument are an ancient heritage of Azer­baijan's history.