Mausoleum of Molla Panah Vagif

A modernist white stone mausoleum on the southern edge of town marks the tomb of Molla Panah Vagif, eighteenth-century poet, statesman, and vizier of the Karabakh Khanate. The original 1982 structure was destroyed during the Armenian occupation; the current rebuild is a faithful reconstruction.

The site has wide views over the Dashalti gorge and is the focal point of the Vagif Poetry Days, an annual festival in late August at which poets from across the Turkic world recite under the stone canopy.

things to do sight
A story
Vagif was vizier to Ibrahim Khalil Khan and one of the most important Azerbaijani lyric poets of the eighteenth century. He was beheaded in 1797 by the Qajar prince Mohammad Khan, who briefly captured Shusha. The mausoleum built over his grave in 1982 was destroyed during the war and rebuilt in 2021 as part of the renewed Vagif Poetry Days festival.