After the establishment of the Soviet authority, Khankendi was renamed Stepanakert (, literally "the city of Stepan") by the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the Azerbaijani SSR, dated August 10, 1923, to honour Stepan Shaumian, leader of the 26 Baku Commissars. After that, Stepanakert was made the capital of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) and gradually became a chief city for the Armenians in the region. According to the 1979 Soviet census, the city had a population of 38,980 people, mostly of Armenians, who constituted 87% of the total population, and more than four thousand Azerbaijanis.
