On 8 May 1992, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War,[3] the Armenian forces captured Shusha, and its Azerbaijani population of about 15,000 people,[4] was forced to flee.[5] Most of the city came into ruins,[6] with the city turning into a ghost town.[4] The Armenian forces heavily damaged the bust, with bullet marks being visible throughout the sculpture. It was transferred to Armenia, and then were purchased by the Azerbaijani authorities in Tbilisi, Georgia.[1][7] The bust was transferred to Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and was kept in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Red Cross[8] until being moved to the yard of the Azerbaijani National Museum of Art in Baku.[9]
The British journalist Thomas de Waal, who saw the monuments in Baku, wrote:
After capturing the city, the Armenians in revenge dismantled and sold bronze busts of three Azerbaijani musicians and poets, natives of Shusha, and these relics were miraculously saved, this time thanks to a scrap metal buyer in Tbilisi. I saw these three bronze busts–in a deplorable state, with traces of bullets, they were lying in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Red Cross in Baku. The poetess Natevan with a head covered with a scarf, holding a book in her hand with a broken thumb; the composer Hajibeyov, speckled with bullets, in a double-breasted jacket and broken glasses, and the famous singer Bulbul, who looks like a thinker ... with a bulging bronze forehead."[8]
