in order to facilitate the copper and molybdenum production of the plant, the urban-type settlement of kajaran was founded by the soviet armenian government in 1947, within the "kapan raion". as a result of the merger of kajaran with the nearby settlement of voghji in 1958, kajaran was granted with the status of a town, with a population of around 11,000. the majority of the population of kajaran were armenian workers resettled from the town of kapan and the nagorno-karabakh autonomous oblast.