Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev signed an order on declaring the city of Shusha as Azerbaijan’s cultural capital. The city’s new status comes months after its liberation from Armenia's decades-long illegal occupation last year.

Shusha is declared as the cultural capital of Azerbaijan in order to restore the city's historical appearance, to bring its former glory to it and to reunite it with the traditionally rich cultural life, as well as to promote it in the international arena as a pearl of centuries-old rich culture, architecture, and urban planning of Azerbaijan, according to the order published on the Azerbaijani President's official website.

The statement adds that Shusha has historically been one of the important centers of the historical, cultural, socio-political life of Azerbaijan. However, as a result of the military aggression against Azerbaijan, Armenia occupied the city on May 8, 1992, and pursued a policy of destroying the historical and cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis in the city. On November 8, 2020, the city of Shusha was liberated from occupation and historical justice was restored.

Shusha is a key city in the Karabakh (Garabagh) region due to its geographical location and historical significance as one of the major cultural, economic, and administrative centers of Azerbaijan.

Shusha was founded during the reign of the Azerbaijani Karabakh khanate's Panahali khan in the 18th century. According to the historical sources, Panahali khan decided to build an "eternal and invincible fortress in a firm and impassable place in the mountains" given the unfavorable location of the previous castles. Construction of the city kicked off in 1752 at about 1,600 meters above the sea level in Karabakh and the capital of the khanate was moved to the city in 1756-1757.

"Khari Bulbul" music festival has once again proved that the policy of the state, which protects multicultural values, is consistently implemented in Azerbaijan.

Yes, we have returned to Shusha ... Shusha has a worthy place in the history of Azerbaijani culture. Like all of Karabakh, Shusha is Azerbaijan.