Tekerli

Tekerli is a village in the Echmiadzin uezd of the former Iravan governorate, later in the former Abaran district, and currently in the Aragatsotn province. The provincial centre lies 16 km to the northwest of the town of Ashtarak, at the foot of Alagoz Mountain, on the right tributary of the Abaran River, at a height of 1950 m above sea level. It was marked in “The Iravan Province Comprehensive Data Book” compiled in 1590 and on the five-verst map of the Caucasus.

Following the settlement of Armenians there according to the Treaty of Adrianople (1829), its Azerbaijani population gradually left the village. In 1829 the Armenians from Alashkirt and Diyadin towns, and in 1877 from Mush and Sasun regions were settled in the village.

The toponym was coined on the basis of the Turkic ethnonym “Tekeli”. In the works of Armenian authors the name of the Tekeli tribe is also given as “Tekerli”, “Tekeli is the name of one of the Gizilbash tribes. Faruk Sümer notes that “The Tekeli” tribe belongs to the Dulgadirli tribe of Oghuz. It is an ethnotoponym.

By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR dated 19 April 1950, The village was renamed “Tsaghkashen”. According to the law “On the administrative-territorial division of the Republic of Armenia” dated 7 November 1995, it was integrated into the administrative territory of Aragatsotn province. Geogrpahic coordinates: latitude 40°30’ N., longitude 44°20’ E.