However, contemporary Armenophobia in Azerbaijan traces its roots to the last years of the Soviet Union, when Armenians demanded that the Moscow authorities transfer the mostly Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast in the Azerbaijan SSR to the Armenian SSR. In response to those Armenian demands, anti-Armenian rallies were held in various cities, where nationalist groups encouraged anti-Armenian feeling that led to pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku. An estimated 350,000 Armenians left between 1988 and 1990 as a direct result of the violence directed towards them.