Nagorno in Russian, mountain, high ground and Karabakh in Persian, black garden. Caucasus territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan, cause of the current conflict, dormant since the dissolution of the Russian empire, which led to the War of Upper Karabakh in the early 1990s. In theory the territory belongs to Azerbaijan but most of the population is Armenian. In fact it functions as an independent republic without international recognition, in Armenian, Republic of Artsaj, until 2017 Republic of Upper Karabakh
