Yuxarı Əylis

The settlement was first mentioned in historical sources in the 11th century under the Armenian name Argulik (Armenian: Արքուլիք). Agulis was known from antiquity as an Armenian cultural center of trade and crafts being a part of the Vaspurakan province of the Kingdom of Armenia.

Its Armenian population specialized in the production of handicraft and sericulture. Numerous sixteenth-century sources spoke of it as a thriving town that maintained strong commercial links with India, Russia, Safavid Persia and Western Europe.[3]

In the 18th century, Agulis had its own schools, a library, a silkworm factory, a large market. The town was enclosed by walls and surrounded by orchards and vineyards. Its Armenian population at the time was recorded at 8,000 households.[3] In 1752, it was captured and subjected to a heavy sack by the armies of Azat Khan, the ruler of Āzarbāijān.[3] The town was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1828, following the Russo-Persian War. By 1897, when a census was carried out by the Russian government, Agulis' population had dropped to 1,670.

In the nineteenth century, Verin ("Upper") Agulis, together with the adjoining Nerkin ("Lower") Agulis, was a major Armenian settlement in the Nakhchivan Uyezd of the Erivan Governorate, with twelve churches and monasteries. The most important church was the St. Thomas the Apostle Monastery, founded in the first century and restored in 1694.[3] The monastery was an important center of learning whose alumni included the merchant and traveler Zakaria Aguletsi, A. Araskhanyan, animal breeder Avetis H. Kalantar, and L. Manvelyan.[3] The community also spoke a unique dialect of Armenian called Zok.[4]

St. Thomas Monastery was, according to the legend, founded by Bartholomew the Apostle. It was last restored in 1694.[3] It, along with other Armenian churches, were destroyed by Azerbaijan state authorities toward the end of the 1990s,[9] at some point between 1997 and 2009[10] On May 15, 2014, a mosque was constructed on the place of the monastery complex.[10] St. Stepanos Church was located on the slope of a hill in the northwestern Verin Get district of the village.[10] It has been completely destroyed by February 3, 2000.[11]

According to the Russian Empire Census in 1897, where the village was split into Armenian and Tatar ethnic-quarters, it had a total population of 1,971 consisting of 1,325 Armenian Apostolics and 639 Muslims. The village had 863 men and 1,108 women.[12]

The 1919 destruction of Agulis is referred to in the controversial 2012 novella Stone Dreams by Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli.[13]

• Christapor Mikaelian - One of the founders of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
• Ziya Kyazim — Azerbaijani Soviet actor, People's Artist of Azerbaijan SSR (1943)[14]
• Akram Aylisli - Azerbaijani writer
• Mouchegh and Melkoum Petrossian - Founders of Caviar Petrossian in Paris, France.
• Lusik Aguletsi - Armenian painter and ethnographer

• Agulis (historical)
• Aşağı Əylis
• St. Shmavon Church (Yukhari Aylis)
• Mets Astvatsatsin Monastery (Yukhari Aylis)
• St. Hakob-Hayrapet Church (Yukhari Aylis)
• St. Hovhannes-Mkrtich Church (Yukhari Aylis)

• (in Armenian) Alishan, Ghevond. Sisakan. Venice: Mkhitarian Press, 1893.
• Eprikian, S. Patkerazard bnashkharik bararan [Illustrated geographic dictionary], vol. 1. Venice: Saint Lazarus, 1902, pp. 4–15.
• Zak'aria of Agulis. The Journal of Zak'aria of Agulis. Armenian Studies Series, No. 4. Trans. George Bournoutian. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2002. ISBN 1-56859-107-1.