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Aram Petrosian says he can’t get himself to imitate his neighbors: “My hand just can’t do that.”
The Armenian teacher lives in the Kelbajar province, which is handed over to Azerbaijan after the lost war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Many of the fleeing residents set fire to their homes to leave nothing for the enemy.
Aram Petrosian doesn’t have the guts to do it, but at least he brought what he could with him. Furniture, gutters, doors and boxes full of dishes are piled up in the loading area of his Soviet-made GAZ truck. “It’s already the second load,” says the 49-year-old, “the rest of our stuff is already finished.”
“We don’t know what will happen now”
Over there, that is, on the other side of the pass road on the territory of the Republic of Armenia, where thousands of compatriots from the Karabakh province have now 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 been close enough to the Armenians in the conflict with Azerbaijan, and in any case with the Azeris, “they are not people at all”.
The hatred that speaks in the words of the educator has fermented since the collapse of the Tsarist empire a hundred years ago and increased with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Both sides, Armenian and Azerbaijani, are not highly regarded. And they flood themselves with accusations. The war that Azerbaijan has now won is only the latest, but it is certainly not the last episode of this hostility.
Petrosian enters his house one last time. There is water on the floor, dripping from the ceiling. “We took apart the pipes and tanks,” he explains, fills a large glass of mulberry vodka and drops it: “This helps, at least a little.”
In the village of Nor Erkej, the Petrosians lived for a long time in a modest hut, raised six children, and two years ago the couple bought a large piece of land near the river. The yellow leaves of the willows and walnuts shine 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 indebted “.
Then he locks the door of his house one last time and begins to tremble. Tears gush from 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 the Dadivank monastery, Russian soldiers have already taken their places at this point. The armistice agreement regulates their deployment, the tanks are emblazoned with a yellow abbreviation which stands for Mirotvorcheskie Sily, meaning peacekeepers. It is still unclear whether they will also guarantee the main route for the passage of Armenians in the future. At least the protection of Christian sites appears to be guaranteed.
Thousands of people flocked to Dadivank Monastery, a 9th-century convent, once again last 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: “The fact 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. The Azeris also suffered civilian casualties in this war. But now they feel like winners. At this moment it is difficult to imagine how the two sides can find a peaceful coexistence.
Some visitors to Dadivank Monastery wander around with wet eyes, others take another selfie. Some of the finely crafted cross stones, called Khachkar in Armenian, have already been broken from 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 realm without control and competence
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 been in charge of the reconstruction here and have set stone by stone myself.” . It will remain, says Father Hovhannes: “If necessary, until my end. Nothing is impossible for God.”
These days of November, Kelbadschar is an in-between realm with no clear controls and skills. At the edge of the main road that follows the course of the Tartar River, men cut firewood with chainsaws. You don’t even want to hand nature over to the enemy. Defiant slogans and curses are written on the walls in clumsy English: “We will return” and “Welcome to Hell, Aliev”.
Vrej Fahradian and his wife Lilit are cleaning up the chicken coop when we enter their property. The couple had just 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 the room in his house on fire. After a few minutes, the flames bang out of the windows meters high, then the stones begin to crack threateningly. Fahradian records a video on his cell phone. He begins to cry silently and hurries to the car with long strides. Do not look back.
His wife is now alone among the helpers facing the ruins of his existence. Putin and Pashinyan are responsible for this, says in a whisper of the rulers of Russia and Armenia: “They gave our country away.” Then he bites the back of his right hand to stifle the sobs.
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