Albanian temple in the village of Herher

In the village of Herher in the Pashaly district of the Deralayaz district

Pashaly district was established on 15.10.1931. On 12.10.1956, it was renamed Azizbeyov, and in 1991, it was renamed Vayk district.

Architecture

The Albanian temple in the village of Herher was abandoned by the Armenians because it was built by the Gargar Turkic tribe. At present, it is in a partially usable condition. Several of the roof tiles are broken. . After the last deportation of Azerbaijanis in 1987-1991, the aforementioned temple is also presented as an "Armenian monument" in the process of erasing Azerbaijani traces.

The Herher temple is located 17 km northwest of the district center, on a high ground on the outskirts of the Herher village next to the Herherchay, a right tributary of the East Arpachay. It was built in 1291 by the Gargar tribe using brown tuff stone and white water-vag. There is a cemetery around it. The temple consists of two adjacent complexes of the same size and structure. When viewed, it gives the impression of two separate temples at the same time. The length of the two adjacent temple complexes is 17–18, width 10, and height, including the roof, is about 6–7 meters. The top of both buildings is oval, there is an entrance door 1 meter wide and 2–2.5 meters high. There are small windows on the front and back sides, and since it is located on high ground, it was possible to observe the surrounding roads and villages from here.
The village of Herher is mentioned in the “Compendium of the Yerevan Province” compiled in 1728 as Harher, and in the 5-verst map of the Caucasus as Gerger (Herher). The ancient name of the village is shown in the Armenian and Russian sources as Erern . The name of the village is mentioned in the 8th century as Erern. The name of the village is now used as Gerger (Gerger). Gerger is a variant formed on the basis of the sound change of the Turkic ethnonym gargar. In the source dating back to 1728, it is Harher in the Daralayaz region.
In 1831, only 213 Azerbaijanis lived here. In the 1850s–1870s, Armenians resettled from the Iranian Salmas province were settled in the village. Along with the Armenians, 647 Azerbaijanis lived here in 1873, 656 in 1886, 1047 in 1897, and 1220 in 1914. In 1918, Azerbaijanis who were subjected to Armenian aggression were deported. After the establishment of Soviet power in present-day Armenia, the survivors returned to their historical and ethnic lands. In 1922, 156 Azerbaijanis lived here, in 1926, 220, and in 1931, 278. By a special decision of the USSR government, Azerbaijanis living in the village were forcibly resettled to Azerbaijan in 1948–1953. Now Armenians live in the village.

The toponym was formed from the name of the Gargar tribe mentioned in Strabo's "Geography". The Gargar tribe is one of the ancient Turkic tribes, in the Gargar ethnonym the sound q changed to h and took the form Herher. The substitution of the sound q-h is a regular occurrence in the Azerbaijani language : the substitution of the sound q-h  in the words gamu-hamı, qansı-hansi clearly shows itself. In general, until the 18th century, words starting with the sound h (interrogative pronouns) were used with the sound q. Herher is an ethnotoponym. It is a simple toponym in structure.