Akhtakhana

Akhtakhana is a village in the Zangezur uezd of the former Yelizavetpol (Ganja) governorate, later in the former Gafan district, in the Syunik province. The settlement was integrated into the administrative area of Armenia following the establishment of the Zangezur uezd in Soviet Armenia on 31 August 1921. The provincial centre lies 22 km to the northwest of the town of Gapan, at a height of 1,150 m above sea level. After the Armenians’ settlement in the village, the Azerbaijani residents gradually left their homes.

The toponym was coined by combining the ethnonym “akhta” who were involved in horse-breeding and the word “khana” used in Persian in the sense of “a settlement, house, village”. İt is an ethnotoponym. The village was renamed “Khlatagh” in 1918 and further “Zorastan” by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR dated 1 June 1940.

According to the law “On the administrative-territorial division of the Republic of Armenia” dated 7 November 1995, it was integrated into the administrative area of the Syunik province.

Geographic coordinates: latitude: 39°16’N., longitude: 46°21’E.