Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, within the mountainous range of Karabakh, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur, and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains. The region is mostly mountainous and forested.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a disputed territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but most of the region is governed by the Republic of Artsakh (formerly named Nagorno-Karabakh Republic), a de facto independent state with Armenian ethnic majority established on the basis of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Azerbaijan has not exercised political authority over the region since the advent of the Karabakh movement in 1988. Since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, representatives of the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group on the region's disputed status.

The region is usually equated with the administrative borders of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast comprising an area of 4.400 km². The historical area of the region, however, encompasses approximately 8.223 km².

I bought some Nagorno-Karabakh stamps on Marktplaats (Dutch auction site) and sent the cover to the philatelic service at Artsakhpost headquarters in Stepanakert. It came back in three weeks with a perfect postmark.

Artsakhpost has a website, but it is written in Armenian and the English version is almost everywhere 'under construction': artsakhpost.am.

There is a page with images of recent stamps, but apparently no way to order them directly.

Date sent: 15 May 2017

Date postmark: 26 May 2017

Date received: 6 June 2017

Number of days: 22

Envelope in collection: 141