Bridge of Barsumshen

The bridge is situated over the river Shamkor in the neighbourhood of Barsumshen Village—purely Armenian-inhabited until 1988—Shamkhor District, Northern Artsakh, a region that suffered deportation of its Armenian population in the same year and has been annexed to Azerbaijan since then. Its construction began in 1884 on Priest Yeprem Melik-Arustamiants’s initiative financially supported by Police Officer Javad Bey Melik-Shahnazariants. __11. Nor-Dar, 1884, No. 121, p. 2 (the original in Armenian). Upon the completion of the work in 1893, __22. Nor-Dar, 1893, No. 47, p. 3 (the original in Armenian). it represented a double-span bridge of pebble and mortar. Within several decades, however, its vaults were reduced to ruins so that the local people had to replace them with a structure of logs.