Kostantin Dyachkov

BIOGRAPHY | SERIES | PORTFOLIO | BLOG

Little Province

        Fifteen years ago, in May 1992, two airplanes were on their way to Karabakh. Two days before then an aerodrome near Stepanakert was recaptured and at the moment boxes containing grenades and missiles for rocket launchers were hastily loaded on Yak planes with a peaceful word on their sides – Aeroflot. People were last to come on board. There were no seats inside so everybody had to stand on boxes and hold on to the ceiling.

        The war, first in the post-Soviet space, was severe. The Political Bureau of the CPSU and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR called self-determination of the autonomous republic national extremism and held it up to shame. By doing this they supported the policy of Lenin and Stalin who unceremoniously gave a large part of Armenia to Turkey and Azerbaijan in the 1920s in exchange for the promise to continue the cause of world revolution in the East. And fifteen centuries before then Armenians fought Persians and Turks shedding their blood for their land and faith. In 1989-1992 no help was within reach. Soviet troops left and almost all their arms was left there for the enemy: tanks, aviation, and rocket launchers. People of Karabakh used weapons they managed to take by force from the enemies.

        A few kilometers away from Stepanakert there is Shushi town. For one year “Hail” and guns had been shooting from there. People lived in basements under the ruins. All you could see was famine, devastation and dead bodies of people and animals on the roads. On May 9th (now it is a national holiday in Armenia) - the day when Shushi was seized – hundreds of men fired a salute in the central square of Stepanakert. I remember that then I was standing in the middle of rejoicing crowd with roaring submachine guns and wondering why all those kilograms and tons of lead disappeared in the sky and did not fall back into the triumphant crowd.

        Nagorno-Karabakh is an amazing country. Only Armenians consider it their own land, the rest of the world either does not see the problem or tactfully does not acknowledges it until the time comes. We were warned in Moscow that we would need visas and a special permission to visit Karabakh. But in Zvartnost – airport of Yerevan – a customs official laughed in response but called his chief just in case and then confirmed: “What visa? You are in Armenia!”
        In the morning we set off for Goris, a near-boundary town of the former Soviet Armenia. To get there we had to go through the Ararat valley and Saravan mountain pass. There are many Iranian trucks and buses on the roads since relations with Persians are good. As long ago as in the early 1990-s, during the blockade, ironically Armenia survived due to trade with Iran – the former sworn enemy turned out to be the only neighbour who did not care about consequences of the “world revolution”. Beyond Goris – Lachinsky passage and, finally, long-awaited country. A small house resembling a traffic police station with a toll bar that does not close. A guy in the window barely waived at us, we stopped and then walked closer to show him our documents. When he heard our Russian speech, he smiled and said: “Journalists? From Moscow? Go on… and here…” We heard some noise and laughter behind us, and then several hands with apples and nuts appeared in the window. “Have some, they are from here, from Karabakh”.

Temporary dwelling in a disputable territory | Agdam, Karabakh, Armenia

        At first, Armenian hospitality amazes, especially in villages where natural simplicity and age-old traditions are not yet clouded with urban fever. We are used to greeting everybody at home but here just a greeting is not enough. Everybody says two or three phrases and then invites to their home. An invitation is always very persistent (it is very hard to turn it down). No matter what the host did before this moment: chopped wood, repaired his car or tools. All work is put aside and the guest is invited to the table. In five minutes all food in the house will be on the table. Kids get sent to a store, women go to the kitchen and you sit on the right of the head of family (the oldest man) and talk about the past war, Peter the First, Potyomkin, Persians and peoples’ friendship.
        A village of Karabakh is alive! About 30 per cent of the population are children under sixteen, and every average family has five kids. There is a lot of cattle in the streets: cows, pigs, sheep and goats. It is very hard to find a way to buy milk in summer where we live – in the north-west of Russia – since usually there are only a couple of cows in the neighbourhood. Here every family has four or five cows, two tens of goats and sheep, the same number of pigs and a great number of chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese. Looking after all these is not considered to be work – people work in the field or in vineyards – and this type of work is just like entertainment for kids and women. In every home you will see home-made cheese, bread, wine and home-grown vegetables. Only coffee that Armenians cannot live without is bought in the stores. Usually all men in the family get higher education and it does not matter whether they will need it in the future or not. They study in Stepanakert or Yerevan, and then half of them go back to their native villages. Sceptics say that there is no place to go – it is still difficult to find a job in cities. And here, in the mountains, everybody has work to do, young and old alike.

Zara & Ripsime

        In Karabakh, just like by an ancient Chinese precept, authorities are not seen. But they do exist and work very well: schools, kindergartens, hospitals, pensions, distribution of land – everything is done without any complaints, in all fairness. Here there is no political theatre we are used to, no obtrusive advertising and armed men in the streets. People are not rich but they do not blame their government for their problems since memory of Turkish yoke still hurts – with 8,000 dead people out of 140 thousand people of Nagorno-Karabakh everyday troubles are nothing in comparison with the recent nightmare. According to Alen Gulyan, chief of criminal investigation department, there are no petty thefts in his territory, not to mention serious crimes. Just like in old times in the Russian North, farmers never lock their homes.
        Also events are felt differently here. There is no past here, the past still exists, events wind up around once created core as a never-ending ribbon. Heroes of the past – neighbours, friends – only yesterday they visited you, you built a road with them, fought the Turks, had a good time in a wedding. Time limitation is out of favour here; Armenians do not betray their friends and do not change their friends. In the very beginning of the journey, when we left Yerevan our driver and guide Armen changed the conversation about ‘yours’ and ‘ours’ by saying simple words: “Here, this is what I will tell you: Armenia is a small Russian province. And we have one tsar – Putin!”
        Since Armenians turned to Russia for patronage and protection when Peter the First promised to ‘show special favour to the honest Armenian nation’, during three hundred years our friendship could not be broken by neither Bolshevik double-dealing nor Gorbachev’s ‘policy’ in the Karabakh issue. But the most difficult trial is not far off. A day is just about to come when the status of this land of plenty will once again become a point at issue in ‘big-time politics’. Then Armenia will at last get from Russia an answer to one of most important questions of its history.
        On the way back I remembered a toast proposed to us by Pavel Bagratovich Avetisyan, the elder of Machkalashen village: “My friends, let’s look into each other’s eyes while we are close to each other. May we remember this moment when we meet again and at least not hurt each other”.

        Russians in Armenia
        Even nowadays Russian language is on equal terms with Armenian. There are many Russian words in speech, Armenian language is not poorer but out of some strange habit in every conversation you will hear such words as “turn”, “bridge”, “gas station” in Russian. Teachers laugh: “Even in high school children do not understand that such words are borrowed from another language”. Russian is not even their second language, people understand it just as well as their native language. Time and time again I witnessed a scene where two Armenians say large parts of their conversation in Russian. In the streets some signs are only in Russian. An Armenian mother said to me: “Foreign language? What do you mean? It is impossible not to know Russian, it’s not foreign, it’s our language!” Levon Irapetyan, an Armenian oligarch, always comes to his native village couple of times a year and says to the villagers: “Study Russian, study it by all means!” In Armenian schools it is taught starting from the first grade. People in Vank village told us with a smile about a ‘riot’ that started when Russian classes were almost cancelled.
        Now there are less Russian schools here since after the war many people left for Russia because of famine and devastation. There were two Russian schools in Stepanakert, now there is only one there – Russian secondary school number eight. Many of its students are Armenians. During recesses and even classes both languages are often spoken.
        In the country where 85 per cent of population are Armenians no one tries to propagate Armenian by force. Perhaps, this is the reason why after a year spent here Russians start speaking Armenian without an accent. And in villages babies are often given two names: a Russian one and an Armenian one...

Gandzasar | Gandzasar, Karabakh, Armenia

        Church
        It seems that Armenians are not anywhere near Russian godliness. “We only go to church on major holidays.” Of course, it is just a private opinion but a common one.
Baptisms, weddings, burials… In villages, in front of a special cross in the church territory people offer roosters, rams or calves as sacrifices, then meat is cooked and given to the poor. Such things together with undiluted wine in the chalice, unleavened bread and impossibility for several priests to serve one liturgy together have been a stumbling block in numerous talks related to integration of the Armenian Apostolic Church and Byzantine Church since the 12th century. Later it became a stumbling block in the issue of unification with the Russian Orthodox Church. Dozens of expert examinations and councils had been held in the past millennium but none of them found any other discrepancies, including canonical ones. Perhaps, due to such stubbornness of Armenians in the matters of keeping the minutest details of the ancient tradition they managed to preserve their faith untouched.
        Meanwhile, in Gandzasar, the third monastery of Armenia in order of importance after Achmiadzin and Sevansky, during Sunday liturgy besides us there were only two girls who seemed to be friends of the ones singing in the choir. By the end of the service only two other villagers came. And three kilometers away from this place there is Vank village with 1,500 people in it. The sun is shining, it is warm and air is filled with joy, it is Sunday, service starts at 11 am and only lasts for a little over an hour. The way they sing is just great! You do not have to understand their language, you will believe anyway, and you will kneel down and cry. It is just impossible to listen to it in a different way. But parishioners still do not come.
        In Stepanakert, father Minas, senior priest of the local church, told us that on Sundays up to fifty communicants perform a religious procession through almost the entire Karabakh. In addition to Sunday services (the priest serves every day) this is done two more times a year. He said that besides the new-built temple of the Armenian Church another one would soon be built - one under Moscow patriarchy. In Stepanakert there are enough Russians who would like to have a temple of their own.

Konstantin Dyachkov

Monastery lodge | Amaras, Karabakh, Armenia