NAGORNO-KARABAKH: THE LAND THAT DOESN’T EXIST
Ethnically Armenian, annexed to Azerbaijan, unrecognised by almost
everyone: Nagorno-Karabakh could be the world’s least-known wonder
Mark Stratton | Issue 150 | September 2014
“This is the miracle of Gandzasar,” said Galust, pointing to a
missile embedded in the 13th-century mountaintop monastery where
locals say John the Baptist’s head is buried. “It hit,” said Galust,
“but never exploded.”
It was difficult reconciling the loveliness of this medieval
treasure’s valley location and exquisite 16-sided tambour, with the
bulletholes peppering its facade. Yet given the breakaway republic
of Nagorno-Karabakh’s recent history, following 70 years of Soviet
atheism, the real miracle of Gandzasar is that it remains standing
at all.
Nagorno nowhere
Nagorno-Karabakh, which perches like a jagged crown above northern
Iran, remerged after the USSR went supernova in the early 1990s and
sent breakaway Caucasus republics spiralling out of control like
rudderless sputniks. Chechnya, South Ossetia and Abkhazia remain
volatile. But a ceasefire between Karabakh separatists, their
Armenian allies and Azerbaijan, which fought for six years over
Nagorno-Karabakh, has held since 1994, allowing travellers to visit
what has become a de facto (although internationally unrecognised)
eastern extension of Armenia.
Stalin sowed the seeds of conflict in the region in 1921, pursuing
a policy of divide-and-rule to combat ethnic opposition within the
fledgling USSR. He severed predominately Christian Nagorno-Karabakh
from Armenia, and spliced it to the mainly Muslim Azerbaijan Soviet
Socialist Republic. The enclave sank into anonymity until Stalin’s
Machiavellian legacy came back to haunt the USSR’s disintegration,
when simmering ethnic tensions resurfaced.
Cradle of Christendom
It was from Armenia’s sun-drenched capital, Yerevan, that I made the
330km drive east into Nagorno-Karabakh: the only access corridor. With
me was Armenian guide, Galust Hovsepyan, whose world-weary countenance
belied his encyclopaedic brilliance for history and art.
In Yerevan we visited several poignant reminders of the 1988-94
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, such as the Mother Armenia Military Museum
and Yerablur Cemetery, where 7,000 Armenians are buried from a conflict
that cost 30,000 lives.
>From Yerevan it was a magnificent day’s drive through the cradle
of Christendom to reach Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital. En
route, along Armenia’s Turkish border, roadside vendors sold sweet
watermelons, peaches, dried apricots and demijohns of areni wine.
Behind, snow-capped Mt Ararat rose 5,137m to a summit that allegedly
received Noah’s ark.
Mt Ararat was also annexed in 1921 to pacify Turkey but remains highly
auspicious to Armenians. On its foothills, at Khor Virap Monastery,
I clambered into a coal-black zindan (pit dungeon) where St Gregory
the Illuminator spent 13 miserable years imprisoned before emerging
to convert Armenia to Christianity in AD 301 – making it the world’s
first Christian nation.
Beyond Ararat the road soared above 2,000m onto Syunik’s rolling
golden prairie. It then entered the contentious Lachin Corridor, the
umbilical cord connecting Armenia and 4,400 sq km Nagorno-Karabakh
through now occupied Azerbaijan territory.
As we crossed over the River Ahavno, a border sign proclaimed ‘Welcome
to the Mountainous Republic of Karabakh’. However, the locals here
tend to call it Artsakh – nagorno (‘mountain’ in Russian) and karabakh
(‘black garden’ in Turkic) echo years of historic foreign domination.
A matter of life or death
There’s no obvious wartime hangover in modern Stepanakert, a vibrantly
breezy little capital that’s been industriously reborn. A youthful
population frequents airy boulevards of boutiques and cafes in a city
putting down roots. Living in a ceasefire zone seemed forgotten every
evening around the Armenia Hotel; on the former Soviet parade ground
of Renaissance Square, goose-stepping soldiers have been superseded by
promenading crowds. At 7pm I joined the nightly migration to Stepan
Shahumyan Park, where a funky fountain spewed in sync to musical
eclecticism – from Shostakovich to Shakira.
Stepanakert Museum holds evidence of centuries of Roman, Persian and
Turkic conquest. But raven-haired museum guide, Gayaneh, was keen to
reaffirm the territory’s Christian heritage, showing me khachkars,
medieval memorial stones finely decorated by geometric patterning
reminiscent of Celtic crosses.
When the war started, Gayaneh – then aged two – was evacuated to
Yerevan. “My father was a mathematician and stayed to fight as a tank
driver,” she said. This petite young woman told me she too would
fight for Artsakh. It reminded me of something I’d read by Russian
dissident Andrei Sakharov: ‘For Azerbaijan the issue of Karabakh is
a matter of ambition; for the Armenians of Karabakh, it is a matter
of life or death.’
“No country in the world recognises them,” Galust explained to us.
“But the Karabakh people are very stubborn and will never leave
these lands.”
“We Are Our Mountains” monument (Shutterstock)
Cultural corners
Over the next few days we sought out far-flung expressions of
Armenian culture in the form of secreted monasteries, fortresses
and ancient cities. First we visited the former capital Shushi, 10km
from Stepanakert. This mountaintop fortress tops the awe-inspiring
Karkar River canyon, the cliffs of which concertina into synclines as
if squeezed through a cook’s icing bag. Shushi’s war-damaged streets
showed glimpses of what once was an elegant multi-faith cosmopolitan
city: there were Persian inscriptions, Moorish Arabian arches and
the tiled minarets of 19th-century mosques. Shushi’s resident Muslim
Azeri worshipped here until recently, fleeing only in 1992 after
being overrun by Karabakh fighters in a ferocious battle that turned
the war in the latter’s favour.
Shushi’s restored 19th-century Ghazanchetsots Cathedral highlights
an interesting dichotomy. Nagorno-Karabakh’s reviving self-identity
centres on its Christian heritage yet during Soviet times practising
religion was forbidden so worship dwindled and churches fell into
disrepair.
After visiting Gandzasar’s hilltop medieval church, we took another
sublime drive to Dadivank Monastery. West of 3,340m Mrav Mountain,
we skirted south of Azerbaijan’s border into the Tartar Valley’s
fertile mosaic of fruit orchards and walnut groves. Here, the sparsely
populated villages contained abandoned Russian T-72 tanks and defunct
Soviet kolkhoz (collective farms). Indicative of the ever-present
Karabakh hospitality, an old man halted his donkey to press hazelnuts
into my hand with a toothless grin.
Galust hadn’t made this journey often so stopped to ask three old men
seated roadside how far Dadivank was. “Fifteen kilometres,” said one.
“Seventeen,” growled another. “It’s 20km!” the third exploded. “You’ve
both always talked rubbish.” When we returned two hours later, the
trio hadn’t budged.
Dadivank is completely unsigned and invisible from the road. Accessed
by a steep track onto a mountain terrace, the terracottacoloured
tenth-century building possesses the austere orthodoxy of mountainous
monasteries I’d seen in Greece and the Holy Land. “It was abandoned
and decayed during Soviet Azerbaijan rule. Not one rouble was spent
maintaining it,” complained Galust.
But the monastery touches the very nerve-ends of Christianity. Dadi,
a pupil of St Thaddeus (Jude the Apostle), is said to have travelled
to Armenia two millennia ago, spreading the gospel. The church was
originally built in the fourth century but rebuilt in medieval times.
Its antiquated decor comprises sumptuous bas-reliefs featuring Jude and
archaic Armenian script including a testament of Queen Arzou-Khatoun
bemoaning her sons’ martyrdom to Turkish invaders.
Unknown world wonder?
My adventures in the South Caucasus ended around eastern
Nagorno-Karabakh’s militarily imposed buffer zone within seized
Azerbaijan territory. It’s accessed via Askeran, where the turreted
wall of Mayraberd Fortress infills a valley like a row of yellowing
dentures. It was constructed by 16th-century Persian occupiers to
block access into Nagorno-Karabakh from the Caspian plains eastwards.
The monastery of Dadivank, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (Shutterstock)
As I scrambled among the overgrown ruins, 75-year-old Zhora wandered
out from his garden of pomegranates and black grapes. “We used to
share Askeran with Azeris. We helped each other,” he said. “But it
became dangerous here in 1988 when there was violence. I was born
here and will never leave because my son was killed and buried here.”
Galust struggled to interpret Zhora’s dialect, which was flecked
with Russian and Farsi diction. But he understood his sentiments,
strident enough to suggest rapprochement with his former Azeri
neighbours remained distant.
Beyond Askeran, the mountains melted into the Caspian plain stretching
deep into sovereign Azerbaijan. Galust tuned in to an Azerbaijani
radio station while we gazed over Agdam, an Azeri ghost town, once
home to 80,000 people before being destroyed by Armenian forces.
Abandoned minarets poked above the rubble of shelled buildings.
The object of our journey was Tigranakert, a 2,000-year-old city that
may one day be celebrated as an ancient wonder of the world. For
now though, a small museum hosts just a fraction of the treasures
trickling from recent archaeological excavations. These reflect the
power of Armenian king, Tigram the Great, whose once formidable empire
(95-55BC) stretched from the Mediterranean to the Caspian. Marc Anthony
and then seventh-century Arab invaders later occupied Tigranakert
before its descent into obscurity.
“Tigranakert is unknown because there was a Soviet prison here so
it couldn’t be excavated until after the war,” explained Varham,
an onsite archaeologist. Most of the artefacts, coins, weapons and
tools are being catalogued in Yerevan. “The richness of these finds
and this architecture demonstrates that several thousand years ago
this was a major trading city between China and Arabia,” he added.
I hiked up to Tigranakert’s mountainside citadel and rested on
the remains of its first-century foundations as blistering hot
winds rasped the dry grass. I was totally alone bar scurrying sand
lizards and looping vultures. Such a vast empire, I reflected,
so completely forgotten. Then distant artillery fire from Armenian
military manoeuvres jolted me back from my heat-hazed daze into the
modern realpolitik of Nagorno-Karabakh.
“This status quo won’t change for some time but maybe in 20 years,
when the sentiments of war have died down, there can be an agreement,”
hoped Galust.
Nagorno-Karabakh remains controversial. And I was aware that, on my
travels, I hadn’t heard the Azerbaijani side of the argument. But
for now, this obscure breakaway republic, so rich in hospitality and
history, provides an absorbing offbeat break away.
The author travelled with Regent Holidays. Includes UK flights,
time in Yerevan, transportation to and around Nagorno-Karabakh,
most meals and a guide.