Gravestones in the village of Ortakilsa

In the village of Ortakilsa, Duzkend district, Shorayel district

Duzkend district – Akhuryan, Ortakilsa village was named Maisyan (connected with the name of the month of May) on April 26, 1946.

Architecture

Coffin tombs are monuments specific to the Islamic burial tradition.
Most of the coffin tombs located in the Ortakilse cemetery were destroyed by Armenians because they were Muslim monuments.

The grave chests are located in an ancient cemetery 15 km from the district center. There are many chests of various sizes in the large cemetery on the outskirts of the village. Most of them are 1.5–2 meters long, 0.5 meters wide, and 0.6 meters high. The slightly smaller ones belong to children and adolescents. The chests are made of carved red and gray stones. There are inscriptions and drawings on them. The large number of them in the Ortakilsa cemetery is due to the large number of Turkic-Muslim people living in the territory of this village.
The village was under the jurisdiction of the Leninakan (Gumru) district until 1937. It is noted in the “Comprehensive Book of the Yerevan Province” and on the 5-mile map of the Caucasus.
The church there was an Albanian church. Armenians were relocated from Iran after the signing of the Turkmenchay Treaty.

The toponym was formed based on the name of the religious temple - church in the village. Since there were several churches in that area, the lexical unit "orta" was added to the toponym as a distinguishing word, and the village named Ortakilse was formed. It is a complex toponym formed due to the relief.