NAGORNO KARABAKH: HAUNTED BY HISTORY

These pictures were taken by a freelance photo-journalist I met in Shushi. They document the desperate conditions in the country, but also the hope, that is essential to the spirit of Karabach. Password: 'magazine'. http://corougemagali.photoshelter.com/gallery/NKR-2007-2010/G0000CV4fx02y90k

These are my own pictures:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2087925&id=1060887215

Nagorno Karabakh, which roughly translates as 'mountainous black garden', though the predominantly Armenian population refer to it as the ancient name Artsach, is a barely-known enigma wrapped up in the politics of the Caucasus, half-forgotten, obscure and mysterious: a place which briefly flickered into the public consciousness at the beginning of the 1990's, as the Soviet Union descended into chaos and Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a brief but bloody war on each other, resulting in the deaths of around 30,000 people, many of them civilians, bombed or shot in their own homes as a process of ethnic cleansing took place - crimes committed on both sides. An enclave of Armenia within Azerbaijan, it is inaccessible to Azeris, and it also separates Azerbaijan from an exclave of their own - Nachivan, necessitating dwellers of that region to fly to their mother country or take an extremely circuitous coach journey via Iran. It's a region that, since the beginning of my trip to the Caucasus, had fascinated and beguiled me. The Azeris had been fanatical about the region to the point where even mentioning Armenia, never mind stating your intention of visiting the place, resulted in social pariah status; to say that it is a thorny issue in both Azeri and Armenian politics is to massively understate the case. It's a beautiful, timeless region, but these things mask a bloody and violent history - not unlike many other areas of the Caucasus. For most of its history, it had an ethnically mixed population, with Armenians and Azeris living side by side, although at no point in history was there ever more than a 75-25 mix in favour of the Armenians. The Soviets in 1923, with Stalin as the main mastermind, cunningly weakened the region by handing it over to Azerbaijan from Armenian control, in an attempt to woo the Turks into friendship, and, he hoped, help to trigger what he expected to be the inevitable European Socialist revolution - a failed attempt which to this day profoundly affects the politics of the region. It is a curse of all the Caucasian countries that they have been wedged between the expansionist nations of Russia, Turkey and Persia throughout history, and Nagorno Karabakh is a microcosm of the region - beautiful, mountainous, and fatally divided.

My first impression of Nagorno Karabakh was, predictably, militarily-influenced. My Marshrutka, which I caught from Goris in eastern Armenia, was carrying a batch of soldiers over the border and probably to the cease-fire line, which still experiences minor skirmishes - this year alone, up to ten soldiers on either side are said to have been shot or killed. I was crammed in, on a fold-down seat, between a bus full of khaki-clad, nervous looking young guys, the oldest of which was probably at least ten years my junior. They were eyeing me suspiciously, unsure of what to make of a foreigner coming to these parts no doubt. I kept my eyes fixed on the horizon, which was becoming more and more mountainous and wild; the road was twisty and bumpy, and after about an hour I was wishing the journey was over. I'd become a bit travel-weary by this stage, having been on the road for several weeks, and no matter how many journeys you do in a Caucasian marshrutka, they never become pleasant. We passed through an area of no-man's land called the Lachin Corridor - a thin strip of land maybe 10km wide and 50km long which used to belong to Azerbaijan but was taken by the Armenians in the war. A few deserted villages, bombed-out houses, nobody to be seen, utterly desolate. At some point a few minutes later we passed over another imaginary border and we were into Karabakh. A sign in Armenian and English read "Free Artsach welcomes you"; next to it, a flag, the unrecognized insignia of Karabakh - identical to Armenia's except for a few white pixels separating the far right corner; symbolic of the country's division from what it considers itself to be part of. Technically, I needed a visa to be entering, but there was nobody around to check me, and anyway, a bus full of soldiers does not usually get checked by border guards. I did feel that if there happened to be some stray Azeri snipers hiding somewhere in the hills that they would have had a prime target, as we wound our way along a road surrounded by high cliffs on both sides. We stopped for ten minute cigarette break, and I was shyly approached with one of the soldiers, who proffered me a cigarette and some chewing gum. I gratefully accepted, and thanked him in Armenian: "shnorhakelutyan" - easier to write than say. After that, the ice was broken, and I got into conversation with the soldiers in halting Russian on my side and stuttering English on theirs. They were indeed on the way to the cease-fire line, doing their 6 week stint before heading back to Yerevan. This is their Palestine, their Northern Ireland, and most looked extremely nervous. Of course, the chances of anything happening to them were slim, but they were heading to a war zone nonetheless.

Three hours after leaving Goris, we were in Stepanakert, the capital 'city' of the autonomous region. When Kapuscinski visited in the early 90's he had this to say about the place: "…the plane was surrounded on all sides by mountains. All around - Switzerland. Here, herds of grazing sheep; there, rushing streams; over there green forests and clearings. It was a hidden paradise. Yet all around me was war. War, death and danger." Stepanakert these days is, thankfully, a bit more sedate, unlike when Kapuscinski ventured there in the early 90's. Yet there is still the vague feeling of threat hanging around, probably because of the high military presence. In truth, there isn't a great deal to the town, and understandably there is very little investment in it - no major restaurant chains or shops, not many hotels, not, indeed, a great deal of anything. And yet, it is surrounded by the most startling nature - the town of 55,000 stands above the Karkar River, in the middle of a typical landscape of forest, pasture and fields backed by craggy mountains. The town itself has a whiff of the Soviet era, and is rather drab, with a few straggly streets meeting at one central roundabout and park, where people seem to congregate and the evening and promenade for a few hours, after the unbearable heat of the daytime sun has passed. I found a passable though pretty dull and lacklustre guesthouse, called the Ella & Hamlet. Out of town and down a dusty sidestreet. For most of my trip, I'd had great luck and stayed in some incredible homestays which were cheap, comfortable, welcoming and importantly gave me an insight into how people lived. In Karabakh, the situation is a bit different as they have very little tourist industry to speak of - even the most adventurous Diaspora Armenians think twice about coming here. Still, I met a couple of travellers in the kitchen whilst foraging for some coffee - Josh from Luxembourg and Kinga from Poland. Both had come the same arduous overland way as I had and were travelling alone, so we soon got into conversation. Josh was a young lad of about 25, Kinga nearer 30, and they were to be the only foreigners I met in Stepanakert as it turned out. Josh and I went out in search of a restaurant for dinner, and found one - possibly the only one to speak of - in the rather plush and newly built Hotel Armenia. Reasonably priced and with quality food, this was to become our restaurant of choice for the duration of the stay. Following an excellent soup and 'khashlama' - lamb stew cooked in beer - we went off to explore the nightlife options in town. These were extremely limited however, and we ended up gravitating to the central park area and having a couple of beers in one of the many outside cafes, before retiring to an internet café. Stapanakert is not the place to come for a party, it's safe to say.

The next day, I was obliged to obtain a Karabach Visa, by law, according to my Lonely Planet. Being that the country is not recognized by any governments officially outside Armenia, this was all a bit farcical and a touch Kafka-esque, but nevertheless the surreal nature of our fool's errand somehow made it worthwhile. The process was very simple and quick once I'd found the relevant government office - fill out a form, declare your intentions for visiting, state the places you want to go and pay $10. In and out in 15 minutes, no other tourists around. A formality, and a kind of Penny Black for visa collectors - along with the breakaway Trans Dniester Republic in Moldova, one of those very rare visas for a country that doesn't actually exist. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stepanakert is not the most exciting place to work, one imagines. One place that I did want to go, but was informed was not possible, was a city called Agdam. Sitting on what was the front line, and is now just behind the cease-fire line, Agdam was once a thriving market town of 100,000 populated mainly by Azeris, lying in what was, before the war, part of south-western Azerbaijan. During the conflict, they were driven out, and after heavy fighting the town was captured by the Armenian army. The entire population of the town fled eastward, and the Armenian forces decided to destroy much of what remained to prevent its recapture by the Azeris. More damage occurred after the war as looting took place, people stripping buildings for every usable item from pipes to floor tiles. Agdam was left as a ghostly reminder of what the country used to be - a place where ethnic Azeris and Armenians lived together. Now, the buildings lay mostly in rubble, a ruined, uninhabited and uninhabitable ghost town, patrolled by Armenian soldiers. Even journalists find entry difficult, and taking pictures can result in severe punishments.

I went to visit the Museum of Fallen Soldiers, one of the few tourist sights in town. The walls of the place were lined with photos of the dead, very reminiscent of similar displays I had seen in Baku. Most of the weapons looked extremely primitive, and some of the guns looked home-made. The overall impression was of a war fought with cheap Russian 19th century technology, a war of attrition no doubt, which must have had a profound impact on the people of a country which had had hard impossibly hard lives during most of the Soviet period, only to emerge from that nightmare to a four-year conflict which was never properly resolved. The old lady who showed us around in Russian probably saw very few tourists, but was clearly proud to have somebody to show. A young girl gave us an excellent tour in English around the Artsach state museum, which also included some of the homemade weapons and primitive explosive devices used during the early days of the war. She told me that the people of Karabach simply wanted the world to recognize them, be it as an independent state, or as part of Armenia - the current no-status position of the country is a great source of anxiety for the people, she said, and the threat of Azerbaijan and Turkey uniting to launch another attack imminently is keenly felt. I didn't have the heart to tell her that in my experience of having lived in Azerbaijan, such a prospect would go down very well with the vast majority of the populace there. A local art gallery included quite a lot of pastoral images of the country, in amongst some Armenian anti-Turk/Azeri propaganda. One image, of a Trojan horse on the borders of Karabakh, summed up the attitude of the artists well.

The next day, I decided to head to the countryside. Gandzasar Monastery is probably the most famous tourist sight in the country, and I'd noted that there was a village nearby called Vank, intriguingly described in the Lonely Planet thus: "Vank, below Gandzasar, is unlike any other village in Karabakh, thanks to the patronage of native son Levon Hairapetian. The Moscow-based lumber baron has funded large-scale redevelopment of the town, including a new road from Stepanakert, and an enormous hotel that resembles the Titanic." So, in the spirit of adventure, I headed on a crowded marshrutka at 9am the one and a half hours north west of the capital to Vank. One curious fact about travelling in Karabakh, and Armenia generally, is that kindly and benevolent diaspora million- and billionaires invest so much money back into their own country - it's a common thread linking all Armenians - they are intrinsically tied to their own soil, and will happily throw money at it to ensure its economic prosperity. Vank was an extreme example of this, and possibly one of the most surreal places I have ever been to. The countryside we had travelled through was predictably poor, and most of the buses and cars along the rutted roads were of the clapped-out variety. On entering Vank, a village of perhaps a thousand people, I had entered a different world. All of a sudden, the grass was clipped, the fences were all painted - everything was yellow and green. A wall of car number-plates, about 100 metres long - swept along the roadside. Apparently, these were taken from the cars of those who left the country in the conflict - from Azeris who were forced to flee. An odd and moving sight.

A brand new school, smart and well-equipped, which wouldn't have looked out of place in Germany or Japan, at the entrance to the village; further on, more smart shops selling tourist knick-knacks, a zoo and a hotel complex which included the afore-mentioned Titanic look-alike hotel, Hotel Eclectic. Outside, garden staff tending to plants, and a huge fish pond, with a small concert stage and yellow and green seating for around 200 people; how often, and what, would be shown there is anyone's guess. Inside, the hotel was, well, ship-shape. All round port-hole style windows, hanging ropes, fish-tanks, aqua-marines and greens with wooden furniture; this place would have delighted the most avid nautical enthusiast. Quite why the billionaire hit on such a design in this most landlocked of countries is a mystery. To further heighten the surreal atmosphere, Gaudi-style paintings and Roman busts. You don't need to booked ahead; there are about 30 rooms, and, when I was there, no guests besides me, except the Luxembourg guy, Josh, who I met there, rather unsurprisingly. Although there were at least fifteen people milling around the reception area, they were all, it turned out, (clearly under-worked) staff who were all employed there. Priced reasonably at about $20 per person, it was an off-beat bargain, a two-star hotel priced like a hostel, with enough staff, presumably, to cater to your every need.

The only problem was that these were the laziest and most disinterested staff in the world. Finding a table in the deserted restaurant was not a problem; finding someone to serve me, and cook for me, was. The restaurant was advertised in The Lonely Planet as having a totally out-of-place Chinese restaurant with three chefs from Guangxi Province; I'd have loved to have seen this, but sadly this unique sight was not to be seen - they clearly had enough of waiting for customers to appear, and escaped back to whence they came. After about fifteen minutes, we were served - most of what was on the menu was unavailable - and our uninspiring meal arrived approximately an hour later. It was clear that staff here were guaranteed jobs, in a kind of benevolent flip-side to Communist full employment, and their absent sugar-daddy didn't give a flip about what kind of service was provided. Still, the whole experience was worth it - for one night. As we were waiting for our meal, a Russian guy walked in - a journalist - and sat with us, there being no one else in the huge room. He told us he was going to Agdam - he had contacts here, and had paid the right person, one presumes. I was slightly envious, and very curious as to what he would see. He looked suitably pleased with himself - I'm sure he would have got a great article out of it.

The afternoon was spent exploring the 13th century monastery, which was about 4km away up a hill. By this stage in the trip, I'd seen countless monasteries, and most had been stunning, often commanding great views of the surrounding countryside. This one was no different, except in that there was literally no one else around, and the hike up the hill in the drizzle was accompanied only by the occasional goat or cow or stray dog strolling along with us. One notable thing about this place is that it has a large unexploded shell embedded in one of its walls - the Azeri army tried to attack it in '93, at the back end of the war, but it was miraculously saved. The countryside around us was beautiful, and largely unexplored. There is a trail called the Janapar Trail which winds through the country from north to south and takes in some fantastic scenery by all accounts, but the presence of unexploded shells around the whole country makes the prospect of going anywhere at all off the beaten track extremely untempting. There was a cemetery outside the church with some beautiful khatchkars (ancient inscribed grave stones), and more modern gravestones, inscribed with the faces of the deceased, looking out whistfully on the stark surrounding green mountains. Oddly, there were some gravestones with only the names of the occupier and the birth dates; graves in waiting, a kind of death reservation. The Diaspora billionaires don't leave much to chance, it seems.

On descending back to the village, I explored the zoo. This turned out to be one of the most depressing experiences of my trip. I'd seen caged eagles in Azerbaijan looking thoroughly miserable, but that was as nothing compared to the poor caged bears, lions and wolves I saw here. They were trapped in prisons of about five square metres, and were pacing around, gnawing at the metal bars, pawing at the walls, shuffling around in their own excrement, hair falling out, teeth worn down, lifeless eyes, angry. Sad, so sad - what kind of entertainment or education does this provide? One thing I'd noticed throughout my trip to the Caucasus is people's blasé attitude towards animal welfare - and a recent article about Tony Adams complaining about the treatment of bears in Azerbaijan confirms this:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/8106216/Tony-Adams-caught-up-in-controversy-over-caged-bear-in-Azerbaijan.html. Suffice to say that I wholeheartedly agree with Tony on this one, and find such treatment of animals repulsive in the extreme. I left very quickly, and decided to walk further up the valley to explore more - I'd seen some kind of complex from the monastery that I wanted to explore. This proved to be an even more bizarre sight than Vank itself. It turned out to be a huge hotel and restaurant complex called 'Kamien Morskie' - 'Sea Stone' - with even less visitors than the one I was staying in. Which is to say, none. And yet, the whole area had been developed around it, into a kind of fairyland for children, with metal sculptures of butterflies and animals adorning the river banks, wooden walkways and platforms for viewing the river gorge below, and more on the nautical theme in the shape of a boat-shaped restaurant along the river. Above, a grotto in the rock which had been carved and sculpted into the shape of a big lion's mouth: all of which may not have looked out of place, say, in Disneyland, but here it was one of the oddest and most incongruous things I had ever seen. There was even an internet café there with high speed satellite connections, where I discovered Newcastle had very creditably beaten Everton away - a Ben Arfa screamer. Cheers, Levon - I might have had to wait days to get that particular piece of good news if it wasn't for you.

I left Vank the next day, on a bus of pilgrims coming back from the monastery. We had been trying to hitch for about an hour, getting increasingly desperate as car after car passed us by without stopping. We had little choice but to do so, as the only bus of the day back to town had left at 7am when we were still snoozing. The bus journey was an experience in itself - an ancient old Soviet model which ran on gas instead of petrol, it took about twice as long as the first journey, but we were treated to fresh fruit and cheese by our fellow travellers, and interrogated by their priest: "How old are you? Are you married? Do you have any children? Are you a Christian? Do you believe in God? Do you go to church?" and so on. I couldn't resist it, and responded that I was agnostic bordering on atheist, which started a discussion that lasted for the entirety of the journey, the black-clad priest attempting to convert me and tell me the error of my ways. As we parted in Stepanakert, he was still shaking his head in disbelief that I was neither Christian nor a member of any other faith - a concept which doesn't fit comfortably in these parts. To declare yourself such is to declare yourself a dangerous free thinker, which isn't much use to the church or state. And, at the end of the day, that's what matters - control, of minds and hearts - it's exactly the same but in a different way in Azerbaijan, and to a lesser but still tangible extent in Georgia.

Our 1970's-era bus rolled into Stepanakert about three hours after we had set off, having spent a good 45 minutes refueling on gas in a primitive gas station as we took shelter from the baking sun under a tree. Time was running out a bit for me - I had about four days to get back to Tbilisi overland, which was about thirteen hours distant - so I decided to head straight up the mountain from Stepanakert to the town that lay above it on a plateau, Shushi, for a couple of nights. I shared a taxi with Josh, as it was only about five pounds for the ten kilometers. Shushi is, perhaps second only to Agdam, the greatest symbol of war and loss on Karabakh. The city was once a centre of Azeri and Armenian art and culture, and during the 19th century it was second in size and importance in the Caucasus only to Tbilisi. Kuban Said, in his book from the 1930's Ali and Nino, describes the place as an exotic, mountain semi-paradise, a multi-cultural place where Armenians, Azeris, Muslims from Iran and Turkey, Russians and Georgians came to trade, and a mixed population lived here largely in peace for centuries. Today, its population is 3500, maybe 5% of what it once was. To enter it is to enter a city still traumatized, mentally and physically, by the war. What remains are some of its medieval ramparts and a maybe 30% of its original buildings. Pock-marks and bullet holes are to be seen everywhere; certain parts of the centre are just bombed-out shells. For Shushi became the decisive city in the Nagorno Karabakh war, and the country's fate swung one night in May 1992 when the Armenian army captured the city, from whence the Azeri army had, until that point, been shelling the capital, sitting invitingly below. It suffered, and is still suffering today - there hasn't been the money for a thorough renovation of the town, and much still lies in ruins. Unemployment is rife - over 50% - and most young people, as soon as they are able to, leave.

Fortunately, amongst all these depressing surrounds, we found a guardian angel for a host. Saro, a local policeman, met us on arrival, dressed smartly in his uniform, and showed us proudly to his house, some way down the hill and down some winding alleys, past burnt-out car shells, a bombed-out mosque, shambling, tumble down houses with huge wooden balconies and grape vines like in Georgia, hops growing wild and kids playing football with a cabbage in the street. One lad came up to us, dressed in shorts that went down to his ankles and pointy shoes at least five sizes too big, offering to carry our bags for us; not insistent, but obviously fairly desperate. He'd become a little guide for us in our time in Shushi. We were soon to be joined by some friendly dogs too - Saro had taken in some strays (there were, and still are, many since the war) - and they happily followed us around the town as we explored its relics. Our house was a haven - massive, slightly decrepit, and with a nice garden for us to relax in, it was another Caucasian travellers' delight. Our charming host Saro, was a veritable mine of information. He drew us a rudimentary map and was the most enthusiastic host I'd had on the trip, talking of the sights of his city with pride - even though a lot of them were in ruins. "But we'll build them up again!" He said, his face lighting up "we'll build this city up again brick by brick - it just takes time." So far, it's taken 16 years, and not a great deal seems to have happened.

I spent an afternoon wondering amongst these rather tragic shells, and thinking: "how could anyone ever live here?" - but life goes on, and I suppose people just get on with it. I climbed one of the mosque's minarets - not an easy business, since the steps were clogged with dirt and rubble and it was very dark going up, which didn't feel too safe, but from the top I got a great view of the surroundings - whole areas were just in ruins, overgrown with bushes and shrubs, yet in between, blocks still existed, and some were being renovated. This way, an overturned, gutted car, that, a mangled factory, just the steel skeleton remaining, bent out of all recognition by the heat of the fire. Thistles growing on the rubble-strewn ground. The mosque itself, one minaret half-destroyed, was a sad sight indeed, a reminder, if it were needed, of the former presence of Muslims here. Further up the hill, a massive old building, 19th century, with some fine artwork lattices on the outside, but inside gutted; a whole side of one street uninhabited. A huge white church dominating the centre - the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral - restored but obviously so; its gleaming, white walls and modern design spoke of extensive modernization. Most evidence of life in the centre was absent; no hotels or restaurants, nothing at all for tourists, just one or two shops selling essentials; not much in the way of private enterprise, no cinemas, theatres, parks (at least ones which are tended to); no museums - in short, not much of anything. I walked to the lower part of town, beyond our house, and looked beyond, to what looked like a cliff. Walking beyond, it turned out to be a vast canyon, wide as any I've seen, at least five hundred metres deep. It was absolutely stunning. On a field just above it, a series of little red flags sticking out of the ground. Landmines? No - amazingly, this turned out to be the most bizarre thing I'd come across yet in a country of surprises - it was a golf course - the only one, apparently, in the Caucasus. An 86 year old Belgian doctor apparently plays every other day in the summer months and welcomes partners; unfortunately, we didn't meet him.

Later on, as we were cooking khorovats (barbecue) in the garden with Saro, I met a French freelance photographer, who has made repeated visits to this region, and seems to have made it her life's work to educate the world about the plight of Karabach. I think her pictures speak for themselves. You can see them above. My over-riding memory of Karabakh is not the ruins, not the desperation, but the people, and their hope. I am of the opinion that some countries are just cursed by history, and more importantly, by geography and politics, and there aren't many examples in Europe of a region so utterly scarred as Karabakh. Whatever happens to the country in the future, I hope that it is better than their past.