Garadigha is a village in the Zangezur uezd of the former Yelizavetpol (Ganja) governorate, later in the former Gafan district, and currently in the Syunik province. The provincial centre lies 12 km to the northeast of Gapan, at a height of 1,225 m above sea level. Following the establishment of the Zangezur district in Soviet Armenia on 31 August 1921, the settlement was integrated into the administrative area of Armenia. The name of the village is also marked as “Garaunlu”, “Garanka”, and “Gardagha”. It was marked on the five-verst map of the Caucasus as “Garadigya”. There are Alban monuments dating back to the 9th-10th centuries in the village.
The village was inhabited by 25 Azerbaijanis in 1831, 200 in 1873, 332 in 1886, 213 in 1897, 198 in 1904 and 184 Azerbaijanis in 1914. In 1918 the villagers were deported having been exposed to aggression by Armenian armed groups, and managed to return to their lands following the establishment of Soviet power in present-day Armenia in 1923–1924. The village was inhabited only by 95 Azerbaijanis in 1926 and 125 Azerbaijanis in 1931. In accordance with the Decision of the USSR Council of Ministers “On the resettlement of collective farmers and other Azerbaijani population from the Armenian SSR to the Kur-Araz lowland of the Azerbaijan SSR” dated 23 December 1947, five Azerbaijani families (28 people) were forcibly deported from their village to Azerbaijan in 1948. In November 1988 the Azerbaijanis were completely expelled from their historical and ethnic lands by the Armenian government. At present, the village is inhabited only by Armenians and called “Vanek”.
The toponym was coined by combining the word “gara”, which implies “big, large”, and a phonetic form of the word “tigey” used in the Turkish language to mean “a hill, peak”.
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.
Geographical coordinates: latitude: 39°17’ N., longitude: 46°21’E.
