The population of the Shahumyan District was mostly ethnic Armenian, although the area was not included within the boundaries of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast.

[citation needed] In the spring/summer of 1991, Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev ordered Operation Ring[3] in which the Soviet Red Army and Azerbaijani OMON surrounded some of the area's Armenian villages (as well as Getashen and Martunashen in the neighboring Khanlar District of the Azerbaijan SSR) and deported their inhabitants to Armenia.

[7][8][9] Armenian forces recaptured most of Shahumyan in fall 1991, and the region was included in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic when it declared its independence in December 1991.

[10] The town of Shahumyan was subsequently renamed to Aşağı Ağcakənd by Azerbaijan in 1992 and partially repopulated by Azerbaijanis, mostly representing internally displaced persons deported from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

As part of an agreement that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, the town of Kalbajar (Karvachar) and its surrounding district were returned to Azerbaijani control.