[ad_1]
He didn’t dare do the same, says Aram Petrosian: “My hand just can’t do it.”
The Armenian teacher lives in the province of Kelbajar, which is handed over to Azerbaijan after the lost war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Many of the fleeing residents set their houses on fire to leave nothing to the enemy.
Aram Petrosian doesn’t have the heart to do that, but at least he took what he could with him. Furniture, gutters, doors and boxes full of dishes are stacked in the cargo area of his Soviet-made GAZ truck. “It’s already the second load,” says the 49-year-old, “the rest of our things are already there.”
“We don’t know what will happen now”
There, that is, on the other side of the road from the pass in the territory of the Republic of Armenia, where thousands of compatriots from the Karabakh province have fled. Aram Petrosian’s family has found refuge in Artik, a small town in the northwest.
Petrosian is angry, angry with the Russians, who, in his opinion, would not have sufficiently supported the Armenians in the conflict with Azerbaijan, and with the Azerbaijanis anyway, “they are not people at all.”
The hatred that speaks in the words of the educator has been fermenting since the collapse of the Tsarist empire a hundred years ago and intensified with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Both sides, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, are deeply unpleasant. And they are bathed in accusations. The war that Azerbaijan has won now is only the last, but not the last episode of this hostility.
Petrosian enters his house for the last time. There is water on the floor, it is dripping from the ceiling. “We dismantled the pipes and tanks,” he explains, filling a large glass with mulberry vodka and spilling it: “That helps, at least a little.”
In the village of Nor Erkej, Petrosians lived in a modest hut for a long time, raised six children, and two years ago the couple bought a large piece of land by the river. The yellow leaves of the willows and walnut trees sparkle in the autumn light when Aram Petrosian has to say goodbye to his piece of Caucasian paradise: “I wanted to build a restaurant here and I planted cherry and apple trees. We are heavily in debt. “
Then he closes the door of his house one last time and begins to shake. With tears in his eyes, he wipes the snot from his bearded face. “Nobody informed us, nobody helped us. We don’t know what will happen now. “
Less than a kilometer away, at the entrance to Dadivank monastery, Russian soldiers have already taken up their posts at this point. The armistice agreement regulates their deployment, the tanks are emblazoned with a yellow abbreviation that means Mirotvorcheskie Sily, that is, peacekeepers. It is not yet clear whether they will also secure the main road the Armenians will pass through in the future. At least the protection of Christian sites seems to be guaranteed.
Thousands of people flocked to Dadivank Monastery, a ninth-century convent, again this past weekend. Sona Harutiunian, owner of a beauty salon in the capital Yerevan, came with her daughter Astrik. Now light the two candles and pray. The mother says: “That we are losing this place again is a tragedy for our people. Now I understand how my great-grandmother felt during the genocide. “
Harutiunian’s words speak of deep disappointment at the loss of much of Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijanis also suffered civilian casualties in this war. But now they feel like winners. At this moment it is difficult to imagine how the two parties can find a peaceful coexistence.
Some visitors to Dadivank Monastery wander around with wet eyes, others take another selfie. Some of the intricately crafted stone crosses, called Khachkar in Armenian, have already peeled off the walls. Father Hovhannes Hovhannisian, head of the monastery, assures in an impromptu press conference: “We will never give Dadivank to the Turks.”
An intermediate kingdom without control or competition.
The muscular man of God, who recently posed with a Kalashnikov, was one of the first three Armenians to return to the monastery after the war in 1993. “Since then I have taken care of the reconstruction here and have put stone upon stone myself.” . He will stay, says Father Hovhannes: “If necessary, until my end. Nothing is impossible with God.”
These days of November, Kelbadschar is a middle kingdom with no clear controls or powers. At the edge of the main road that follows the course of the Tartarus River, men cut firewood with chainsaws. You don’t even want to hand nature over to the enemy. Curses and defiant slogans are written on the walls in uneven English: “We will return” and “Welcome to hell, Aliev.”
Vrej Fahradian and his wife Lilit are cleaning the chicken coop when we enter their property. The couple were newly married when they moved here 20 years ago. Vrej was a physical education teacher and his wife was a librarian at the local school.
Now Fahradian wraps a gasoline-soaked rag around a stick and sets fire to his bedroom. After a few minutes, the flames hit meters high through the windows, then the bricks begin to crack threateningly. Fahradian records a video on his cell phone. She begins to cry silently and hurries toward the car with long strides. Do not look back.
His wife is now alone amidst helpers facing the ruins of her existence. Putin and Pashinyan are responsible for this, he says in a low voice about the rulers of Russia and Armenia: “They gave up our country.” Then he bites the back of his right hand to suppress sobs.
