School for Girls

XIX century architectural monument of local importance. Inventory number: 5019

Shusha Girls’ School was also known as the Mariinsky Women’s Gymnasium. The gymnasium  was established on October 26, 1875, by the Shusha Charity Society. Girls of all religious beliefs and backgrounds were allowed to study at the school. The curriculum included reading and writing, calligraphy, drawing, drafting, general geography, history, and regional studies, which involved drawing maps of the Shusha district and the Russian Empire. Education at the school required a fee, but poor students were exempt from tuition. Those who paid an additional fee were also taught French and German languages, as well as music. Gymnastics was optional, depending on the wishes of the parents, and was taught free of charge. Russian language was taught using Konstantin Ushinsky’s book ‘Native Language’, while arithmetic was taught based on Vasily Yevtushevsky’s book ‘Arithmetic Problems’.”

In 1894, Shusha Girls’ School was transformed into a four-grade gymnasium. In 1901, the number of Azerbaijani students studying at the school was 7. During the Soviet period, the building housed a boarding-style secondary school for both boys and girls. The girls' school building is an immovable historical and cultural monument of local importance. After the liberation of Shusha city from occupation, design works on the restoration of the building is underway.

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