Nagorno-Karabach Republic is legally unrecognized, but actually independent state of the Caucasian region. De jure it is a part of Republic of Azerbaijan, but it is an independent country in fact. It has an area about 11500 sq.km. (the question of borders is still not solved) and population about 151000. Stepanakert is a capital of this state. NKR has an own currency - dram. 1 dram = 100 luma.
Never heard of this country. You always learn something new in coin collecting. Very cool coin designs. John
Cool, I had heard of this self-declared country before but didn't know they had issued coins. I do have a postage stamp from there:
Actually they now prefer "Artsakh". The new constitution mentions both names, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh and Republic of Artsakh. From what I know, the latter is closer to Armenian usage. Have not seen it on coins or notes yet though ... Christian
This is a very interesting thread. Were the coins struck in Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh or elsewhere? The stamp is also interesting ("We are our mountains"). Are these stamps used only internally? If the country is not recognised by other governments, then how would people there be able to send international mail without the unrecognised government being a part of the International Postal Union (if other member states accept their stamps, then wouldn't that be a recognition of the issuing authority?).
From what I know, the banknotes were produced in Austria (OeSD), and the coins were minted in Slovakia (Kremnica Mint). Whether the latter applies to the 2004 or 2013 set or both, I don't know. Got a set of those too, and - since I am not really interested in pseudo-coins - tried to find out whether these actually circulate. Apparently they use primarily Armenian cash; nevertheless the coins shown here are not fantasy issues made for collectors only. No idea how these stamps work. Christian
Thank you for your reply. If the coins see limited circulation compared to Armenian money, then maybe they were struck more to assert sovereignty than due to the needs of commerce?
Well, that stamp (along with a couple of others of the same design) was on a letter that was mailed to me (in the United States) from an Ebay postcard seller in Nagorno-Karabakh. The postmark is Stepanakert, the N-K capitol. (I had bought a couple of Armenian postcards from this seller.) So, it is possible (or at least was, ~8 years ago) to mail internationally from N-K using these stamps. However, I don't think this means that the International Postal Union officially recognizes them, it probably just means that some slip through the system. My understanding is that international mail from Nagorno-Karabakh gets sent to Armenia, and through the Armenian postal system gets sent to destinations worldwide. This all happens of course "unofficially" since Armenia doesn't want to anger Azerbaijan by recognizing N-K; but since the people of N-K are ethnically Armenian, and there are plenty of family and business ties, money and goods cross the border pretty regularly despite attempts by Azerbaijan to stop it. (I expect that smuggling and/or bribery of border officials may be involved.)
