Zagem

A portion of the 1693 map by Robert Morden showing the Kingdom of Kakheti (Reg. de Cachet) with the town of Zagem (Zagan).

Zagem or Bazari (Georgian: ბაზარი) was a town in the southeast Caucasus, in the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kakheti. It flourished from the 15th to the 17th century as a vibrant commercial and artisanal centre. In the 1550s, it became a dependency of the Karabakh–Ganja province of Safavid Iran.[1] The fortunes of the town were reversed by Safavid military actions in the area in 1615. By the 1720s, the town had been reduced to an insignificant hamlet. The settlement was located in what is now the Zaqatala District of Azerbaijan, but no evidence of the town remains at the site. The toponym Zagem is found exclusively in non-Georgian sources; Georgians knew it as Bazari, meaning "bazaar".

  1. ^ Floor 2008, p. 302.