Alvach
Village in West Azerbaijan, Iran
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alvach (Persian: الواچ, romanized: Alvāch;[1] Syriac: Alwāj)[2][a] is a village in Rowzeh Chay Rural District, in the Central District of Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 5,320, in 1,075 families.[4] It is inhabited by Kurds.[5]
History
Alwāj was noted by Anglican missionaries in 1893.[6] There were 92 Church of the East Christian families with 1 church in 1914 when visited by the priest Mirzā Benjamin Kaldāni.[6] It was located in the Baranduz district.[6] Prior to the First World War, there were 70 Assyrian houses at Alwāj, as per the list presented by Agha Petros to the Lausanne Peace Conference in 1922.[7] In October 1914, amidst the Sayfo, after Russian forces had withdrawn to Urmia and the villagers had fled to the city, Turco-Kurdish troops set fire to Alwāj and killed those who had remained behind.[8] Headstones in the former Christian graveyard in the village were still extant in 2008 albeit they had been damaged by Kurds who celebrated fire festivals in connection with Nowruz there.[5]
