Seven months have passed since the start of the blockade of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh). Food, vital medicines and fuel supplies are scarce or unavailable, and hundreds of citizens wait in line each day to see what goods they can acquire. We have all heard the stories—the dire need for the international community to condemn Azerbaijan’s blockade of the only lifeline connecting Artsakh with Armenia, loved ones separated with no ability to return home and no end in sight. Earlier this month, I spent some time with two of several dozen students from Artsakh who are now essentially stranded in Yerevan after their studies ended.

Diana and Tatevik are medical students in their first year at Mkhitar Heratsi Yerevan Medical University. The blockade began during their studies, and they have not been able to return home since. They have not been able to see their friends, their family or their homes. Every day, they keep in touch with their families through phone and video calls, if lucky with the connection, witnessing their families’ pain and feeling helpless.

They share their personal stories with the Weekly.

Eighteen-year-old Tatevik Samvelyan is from Stepanakert. She originally considered going to school to become a translator. But after the 2020 Artsakh War, she came to the decision that the country needs more doctors and felt it was the obligation of every citizen to do something for their homeland.

“Last time I was at home everything was much different and much warmer”

The last time Tatevik spent at home was in October 2022 for her birthday. She says it was the most impressive birthday, because she didn’t think she would get the opportunity to travel home on that day. It was a surprise organized by her father who, along with her mother and younger brother, kept it a secret until the last minute. “It was such an emotional moment when I knew about it because I was worried that it would be my first birthday away from the family,” Tatevik says. One particularly memorable moment was a surprise photoshoot her parents organized, in which she took photos in the white coat of a doctor. 

“I love my birthday a lot. And I don’t know why, but last time I was at home everything was much different and much warmer. And the day I was coming back to Yerevan I was so emotional,” recalls Tatevik, overcome with tears.

“On my birthday in 2020, I was in Gyumri, and obviously I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate anything. But my dad, who was still in Karabakh, was encouraging me to do something nice on that day. So I spent the day with my relatives, and on the same day in the evening I received a present—flowers and a stuffed animal—and I was told that it was from my dad although he was on the front,” recalls Tatevik. 

While Tatevik has been in Yerevan, she has kept in contact with her father, although he’s not that talkative. She asks him about the current situation back home and tells him about her classes and how she spends her days to lighten the mood. As a military doctor, he also helps Tatevik with her lessons, and sometimes they prepare lessons together. 

When the blockade started, Tatevik like many others thought that it would only last a short period of time and that the road would open soon; however, the more time that passed, she began to lose hope that it would ever open again.

“Other students are dreaming about going abroad for vacation—our dream is simply to go home” 

Tatevik reiterates what hundreds of residents of Artsakh say on a daily basis—that they have a serious problem with food deliveries. However, she hopes that something will change “because it simply cannot remain in this status.” “After exams, other students in the group were discussing their vacation plans like going to the beach, Egypt and other countries. At that moment my friend and I (again from Artsakh), were just looking at each other because our dreams are so different. We simply dream of going home, to hug our parents and loved ones.” 

While the citizens of Artsakh desperately wait for the road connecting to Armenia to open, Tatevik says that if there is a chance to go home she will do that, even knowing that it will be much harder to come back to Yerevan again.  

“I think that we, the people of Artsakh, do not deserve what we’ve been going through. I was wondering why regular people can dream about going abroad for a vacation, but we are dreaming about simple things, like going home or having electricity or eating fruits and vegetables.” 

When asked if she’s going to try to convince her family to move to Yerevan with the situation worsening in Artsakh, she replies, “I don’t want to think that one day I won’t live in Artsakh or something bad will happen to Artsakh. No, I don’t want to think about bad things. I would say the opposite. I want to go back home, instead of convincing them to move here. And I want to live in our pre-war Artsakh.”  

Diana Arakelyan, 19, is from Lernavan in the Askeran region, not far from Stepanakert. She lived in a large house surrounded by gardens with her parents, grandparents, two sisters and her six-year-old brother David. Her older sister currently studies in Artsakh, while her younger sister came to Yerevan to pass her exams at the American University of Armenia and remains in Yerevan with Diana.

“Mom, you’re cutting out, change your location” 

Diana says that the white coat of the doctor is a “completely different world” for her, and she was inspired by her grandmother when choosing a career in medicine. After the 2020 war, her desire to become a doctor “doubled and even tripled,” she says, because doctors are needed more than ever in Artsakh. 

Like Tatevik, Diana was also planning to travel home after the end of the semester in January. When the blockade started, she thought it was something temporary. As it continues, her only contact with the family is through phone calls, rarely video calls, which are frequently interrupted due to the poor Internet connection. “Mom, you’re cutting out, change your location,” quotes Diana, the most frequently used sentence when talking to her mother. 

While Diana is trapped in Yerevan far from her family, her parents sometimes joke by saying, “You are the one who is under blockade, not us, because you are the one who cannot come back home.” 

“See, Din, I painted this heart for you”

David, Diana’s six-year-old brother, is the one she misses the most. “I miss my parents differently, but in the case of Davo, I can’t explain, it’s something special. He resembles me a lot, and we share a unique and close bond. I often joke that, you know mom, he is my son, not yours,” says Diana.

As her family recounted, during the first period of the blockade, David was upset with their mother for not buying him bananas, something he has always enjoyed eating. “When they told me that story, I couldn’t help myself and got emotional, because before the blockade we would

buy him literally whatever he wanted, and now as the stores are empty, there is nothing they can do. So I urge my mom, ‘Don’t keep him in Artsakh because he’s not used to the situation. Send him to me and I will take good care of him,’” says Diana. 

She says that she always asks David how he spends the days in school and what new things he has learned. During one of Diana’s video calls, he showed her a heart that he had painted for her: “See, Din, I painted it for you.”

“He always asks when I’m coming back. I used to say, you know, I have classes here and I cannot come right now. And recently when I was talking to my mom and told her that I finally passed all the exams, he cheered up thinking that I can manage to go home now. ‘Din, you will come home, won’t you? I’m waiting for you.’ I was trying to change the subject because to be honest, I have no hope that I will manage to go home anytime soon.”  

“I was dreaming of sitting outside at night and enjoying the lights of Stepanakert, but now there are no lights, neither can I go”

Diana says that she usually speaks with her father on Sundays and asks him about the agricultural work he does on their land. “Near our land, there is a spot from which there is a magnificent view of where Stepanakert, Shushi on the hill and Askeran on the other side can be seen, and it feels like you are embracing all of Karabakh. I used to tell my Dad that in the summer I would come back, we would celebrate many things, and he would make samovar tea for me. I was dreaming of sitting outside at night and enjoying the view and the lights of Stepanakert. But now neither can I go, nor can you see any lights in Stepanakert,” says Diana. 

Diana believes that all of this is being done to break the Artsakh people, but Azerbaijan must understand that it’s not possible. “My grandparents always say that they have seen even worse days in 1992 and it couldn’t break them. They say that we will find the strength to go through this situation without food, without taking a shower, and without electricity, with one candle. The only important thing is that we live in peace, that our soldiers come back safe and healthy. The rest is not important; the rest we can handle,” Diana says. “I have so many thoughts in my mind, all kinds of scenarios are running through my head, but I’m trying to think that everything will be okay. I am trying to think that some solution will be found for this situation. I’m not sure what scenario will happen. What I am sure of is that this situation will come to an end as soon as they [Azeris] understand that they cannot break us and force us to leave our homes.” 

Diana says that after the war in 2020, when they returned back to Karabakh, she was depressed and one of her only coping methods was to pray. “That is what helped me to find the strength to try to go back to the pre-war lifestyle. Although I cannot forget all the feelings I went through, I’m trying to pass that. But it’s impossible to forget that because it’s not over and we are now in kind of a ‘passive war,’” she says.

Towards the end of our conversation, I asked Diana about her plans and the plans of her family. “We have put aside all the plans we had made before. Everything has changed now, and our plans for the future have changed too. I will put it this way. People living there don’t even make plans. They live their days trying to enjoy every single moment and to appreciate that nothing bad happened on that day and their beloved ones are safe. And every morning each of us prays that nothing bad happens on that day,” she answers. 

Author information

Anthony Pizzoferrato

Anthony Pizzoferrato is an Italian American freelance photojournalist, documentarian and filmmaker based in Yerevan, Armenia. His work places emphasis on reporting and documenting conflicts, political events, complex social issues, human rights and cultural history within post-Soviet states and the Middle East while creating understanding, intimacy and empathy. His work on the war in Ukraine and protests in Yerevan has been published in Getty Reportage.

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Imagine being offered the chance for incredible adventures as one of the first travelers to tour “previously restricted areas” – and best of all, it’s free! Sounds too good to be true, right? Indeed it is. As members of the global community of “extreme travelers” chasing excitement have been discovering, everything has its price. All expenses paid trips to Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) offered to travelers by the Azerbaijani government aim to promote the nation’s image through social media influencers and use their interviews with the press to further the country’s propaganda objectives. These practices have deep ethical implications with consequences for both the influencers involved and the wider international community. 

By inviting social media influencers to Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the government of Azerbaijan seeks to present an image of prosperity, development and stability in the disputed area, at a time when its treatment of Armenians and Azerbaijani dissidents alike has garnered it bad press. These unsuspecting tourists have become another arm of the Azerbaijani propaganda machine, along with bribed international officials, corrupted politicians and a hyperactive bot army. 

Each trip follows the same format, which can be tracked through the Instagram stories the influencers share along the way. The most egregious part of the adventure, which is also one of its highlights, is a stop at a military base in Gubatly right along the Armenian border, where the travelers pose with all manner of weaponry and drive around in tanks. They are even given the chance to fire actual weapons at imagined enemies, most likely in the direction of the besieged Armenian population living just kilometers away. One particularly zealous tourist from Brazil even donned Azerbaijani military fatigues as he fired weapons for his Instagram story—all this less than three years after thousands of soldiers were killed in those very fields. 

Cocooned within the perceived safety of an official government trip, this ghoulish behavior is in fact by design. As pro-government Azerbaijani media reported last September, these trips are “of exceptional importance for promotion of the liberated territories [Karabakh] as part of ‘black [dark] tourism’”. Trips to the sites of tragedy and death, known as “dark tourism,” have become a source of big money in recent years. Despite its name, however, genuine “dark tourism” is not intended to be a celebration of war or morally dubious behavior, and one of the leading dark tourism websites has issued a warning that participation in these trips is not acceptable, as it violates the principles of dark tourism and “clearly serves the dictatorial state’s propaganda”. For Azerbaijan, it isn’t just an opportunity to spread propaganda, but also a means of advertising to attract future paying thrill-seeking tourists and boost its international image. Even more fraught is the fact that, judging from much of the social media content shared by attendees, they knew absolutely nothing about the conflict upon arrival. This puts them in a very vulnerable position, which is useful to their host’s designs but liable to backfire on the participants themselves. 

One of the influencers experienced this first-hand on June’s “Shusha-2023 Expedition” tour, done in partnership with the travel club MTP (Most Traveled People) and led by its founder Charles Veley. On July 21, South African traveler Petro Marais posted a video of herself from the month prior smiling and eating ice-cream at a “fully stocked supermarket” located in Shushi, while harrowing stories circulated of the empty supermarkets, widespread hunger, and even malnutrition-induced miscarriages affecting the Armenian population just down the hill from there. The video went viral, with journalist Lindsey Snell calling it “among the most repugnant things I’ve seen during Azerbaijan’s 7+ month blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh.” This is not to say Marais intended malice by her seemingly innocent story. She likely didn’t know about the ongoing blockade at all, and her hosts certainly wouldn’t have told her about it. Yet this is the kind of danger that influencers invite when they allow themselves to be lured by a free trip into becoming hapless tools of a propaganda machine. This lack of awareness not only compromises their integrity but also misleads their followers, undermining the credibility that influencers often strive to maintain.  

Another tactic seen in the social media videos is how ever-present Azerbaijani journalists ambush participants at inopportune times, creating an environment of pressure to speak about something the travelers have very little knowledge about. As one of the travelers described in an Instagram story early in the June trip, “We are being followed around all this week by local TV and media. They keep pulling all the foreigners for quick interviews, and it’s online within the hour. I’ve managed to avoid so far!” They did eventually get him, and he gave the press a very neutral response, which seemed to disappoint the journalist from her expression. The traveler tellingly captioned the video, “They want you to stick to a script…” The number of cameras following the participants at all times gave the trip the look and feel of a reality show rather than a vacation. These photos of Marais, shared by Snell, show her being interviewed by no less than six separate local outlets at once. During February’s tour, they went to the site of the government-sponsored protest that closed the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor, to promote the false talking point that there was no blockade against Armenians. 

Some, like Marais, have learned the hard way that even if the Azerbaijani journalists do not get the ideal quote they want, that won’t stop them from making it up. In the wake of the backlash her posts received, she issued a statement about her trip to Azerbaijan, in which she made the following claims: 

“There is a video clip released by an Azerbaijani media outlet going around with a quote that has been falsely attributed to me. This is something I never said. I was not aware prior to attending the trip there would be cameras following me the entire trip. I was not paid to attend this tour however all expenses was [sic] covered. While I understand this is a propaganda tour to the region, I agreed since this is a unique opportunity to network with other travelers and to visit a place that is impossible to visit independently.” 

In light of the notoriety of Azerbaijan’s “caviar diplomacy” and the corruption of the Azerbaijani Laundromat, the claim “I wasn’t paid” has become a common defense among those who take such trips but do not feel they monetarily benefited from them. However, accepting a free trip, accommodations, and getting wined and dined along the way is still accepting a gift. Cash is not the only form of bribery. 

Even travelers who were careful not to get co-opted still managed to inadvertently promote Azerbaijani propaganda. The theme of reconstruction and the return of displaced Azerbaijani IDPs to the Karabakh region is a major component of the tours. Tours visit construction sites in the currently empty Armenian village of Talish, where new homes have been built to house Azerbaijani settlers to replace the native Armenian population. One traveler inadvertently promoted a narrative of Talish as a successful example of expedient construction to facilitate a “return,” when in fact what he was looking at was the result of ethnic cleansing by the very government that was hosting him. Further reiterating the Azerbaijani government’s stamp on the trip, it wrapped up with a special breakfast with President Aliyev’s assistant (and chief propagandist) Hikmet Hajiyev.   

While these free trips are still a relatively new phenomenon, the June trip was the seventh so far, Azerbaijan is aggressively pursuing more participants. As their true nature is exposed however, some travel groups are reconsidering the wisdom in partnering with Azerbaijan. Karabakh trips have been conducted in partnership with travel organizations such as ETIC (Extreme Traveler International Congress), TCC (Travelers’ Century Club), Nomadmania and MTP, which Azerbaijan relies upon to source its interested travelers. The May trip was done in partnership with the organization Club 100, after which it received negative press in Sweden. Club 100 chairperson Reine Larshans, who had not attended, told the Swedish outlet Blankspot, “I expect the [organization’s] board to distance itself from trips like this sponsored by a totalitarian regime which, to top it all off, are carried out in a war zone where the gunpowder smoke has hardly settled. All members can go wherever they want as private individuals, but if you make a trip in the name of the club, you must be careful and not allow yourself to be used for propaganda purposes.”

The Azerbaijani government’s attempts to organize all expenses paid trips for influencers to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region for propaganda purposes are loaded with ethical implications. By exploiting the influence and reach of social media personalities, the government seeks to shape international perceptions while sidestepping the complexities of the long-standing conflict. By going so far as to place the visiting influencers into the tanks and uniforms of the Azerbaijani forces, it symbolically enlists them in the cyberwar against Armenians while using their platforms and words to conceal ongoing atrocities. By ignoring the complex historical and geopolitical realities on the ground, and erasing the legitimate grievances and claims of the ethnic Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh, these influencers are not just accepting a free trip but doing active harm by deepening existing divisions and making the path to a peaceful resolution even more challenging. Ultimately, it is essential to advocate for transparency, accuracy and respect from influencers, tourists and travel organizations, making them aware of the damage they are doing by accepting these free trips, and instead foster an environment where unbiased and informed perspectives lead the way.

Author information

Paul Vartan Sookiasian

Paul Vartan Sookiasian is a writer and editor based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has worked in Armenia as the English language editor at CivilNet and as a project associate for USAID programs. More recently he served as one of the organizers of the World Congress on Information Technology 2019 Yerevan. He is also a historian who researches and brings to light the long and rich history of Philadelphia's Armenian community.

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One of the exceptional and mysterious villages of Artsakh, Astghashen, is known for its star-shaped stones from which the village got its name, which appear on the ground especially after rain. Originally the name of this village was Qaraghbyur. Later it was renamed by the Azerbaijanis, but in 1988, the village was named Artsakhashen, and after some time the village got its name, Astghashen.

Fossilized animals and petrified remains of wood were found in the vicinity of the village. The star-shaped stones have a history of 145-165 million years.

According to specialists, the territory of the village used to be an ocean, and the star-shaped fossils are star-shaped bones belonging to the plant species of sea lilies.

These mysterious stones changed the village into a tourist destination, and the territory is under the control of the country as a place of cultural and historical significance.

Many tourists from all over the world used to visit the village and collect star-stones, but the number of tourists declined after the war. Today, visitors of Astghashen are locals from Artsakh.

The village is located 20 km. from Stepanakert in the Askeran region. Besides the star-shaped stones, the village is also rich with its churches and holy places like Frangyulac, Kapenkhach, Chmanekhach and Yere Nhatak. A holy liturgy is held at St. Gevorg church (built in the 19th century) every Sunday.

The road leading to the village was paved after the war. Astghashen has a village administration, a house of culture, a medical center, a kindergarten, an art school and a newly-built secondary school with all the necessary conditions. Construction of residential houses for displaced people started after the war. 

The village wasn’t damaged during the war. After the war, many displaced families resettled there.

“All displaced and resettled families of the village were provided with houses, parts of which were completely renovated. All of them have become a part of the village’s society. Some of them are working on construction sites, and some of them are doing different hired jobs. The displaced are mostly from the region of Hadrut, but we also have people from Avetaranots, Jraghatsner and Tigranakert,” said the head of the village, Arthur Grigorian.

The main occupations of the villagers are animal husbandry and farming. The latter is more developed. There are only a few herdsmen in the village. According to Grigorian, the blockade has promoted farming.

“People got engaged in the cultivation of vegetable crops. There are almost no uncultivated lands near the houses. All of them have been cultivated by the villagers so that they can solve the problem of food security themselves. Due to the heating problems, two families are engaged in greenhouse agriculture, growing greens, tomatoes and cucumbers,” Grigorian said.

According to Grigorian, the level of unemployment among the youth of the village isn’t high. “Now, most of the youth are working in military units and newly-established modern gardens. Perhaps only 20-percent of the youth don’t have primary jobs, but the others manage to work and provide for their families,” he said.

Speaking about the main problems of the village, Grigorian mentioned the lack of irrigation water and the need to repair the house of culture.

“The main issue is the lack of irrigation water. The village is provided with permanent drinking water, which is also used for the irrigation of households. Among the problems that require a solution is the need of repairing the house of culture, about which we informed the government. A lot of money is poured into building new buildings. We have mentioned several times, it isn’t worth so much money. The house of culture and the library need repairing,” Grigorian concluded.

Author information

Vahagn Khachatrian

Vahagn Khachatrian was born on October 2, 1999 in the Republic of Artsakh. He graduated with a degree in economics from Artsakh State University. Vahagn is a member of the ARF Artsakh Youth Organization Central Department and a leader in the ARF Artsakh Junior Organization. He is also a journalist for Aparaj newspaper.

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In the basement of the Hairenik Association in Watertown, Massachusetts, more than a century of history lies safely tucked away. Here, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Bureau keeps the party’s archives, with material spanning from its founding in 1890 until 1992. George Aghjayan, who has been director of the archives since 2017, guided me through a tour of the ARF Archives, some new acquisitions and ongoing projects. 

History permeates every level of the Hairenik building. Prior to the descent to the basement, a part of the archives is stored on the first floor, which houses the Armenian Weekly office. In a small storage room, four-page spreads, entirely in Armenian, are bound into massive tomes by year, dating as early as 1899. Their digitized versions are available in the Hairenik Digital Archives collection. As the books grow older, the pages grow yellower and more delicate, the covers loose and faded, until they are too risky to flip through for fear of damage. Those nine decades of storytelling rest next to the computers housing the stories of today. The 90th anniversary of the Armenian Weekly is approaching next year, along with the 125th anniversary of the Hairenik newspaper, and decades from now, this week’s paper may sit on those big shelves in a tome, waiting to be rediscovered.

The first floor also houses a painting revering Armenian history and culture: Spirit of Armenia, painted by Haroutiun (Harry) Shahbegian. Shahbegian was born in 1889 in Kharpert and fled to America at age 17 after the Turks issued papers to have him hanged. The family he left behind did not survive the Genocide. He volunteered as a Freedom Fighter during the Genocide and was well regarded by the generals for his skill. He married and had three children, to whom he passed down his Armenian values. 

Spirit of Armenia represents Shahbegian’s love of Armenian history and culture, as well as his belief in Armenian independence. The piece was completed on May 28, 1963, on the 45th anniversary of Armenian independence, and honors those who aided the Armenian cause. Depicted are Armenian Kings, President Woodrow Wilson and the founders of the ARF. Shahbegian also paints Soghomon Tehlirian, a personal friend of Shahbegian’s whose impacts on Armenian history have recently been expanded upon in the ARF Archives. Though self-taught, Shahbegian’s work reflects the memories of his homeland and his dreams of Armenia’s independence, and it watches over the staff of the Armenian Weekly as they write for and about the Armenian people. 

Down in the basement, every piece of paper from 1890 to 1926 has been cataloged, microfilmed and organized into 27 chronological volumes of catalogs. The documents from 1926 to 1940 are organized by theme or subject, and materials after 1940 are split into 225 cataloged boxes. “The archives also include the archives of the First Republic of Armenia, including the 1918 Declaration of Independence, and continuing past the fall of the Republic to the Diplomatic Mission in France and the Paris Peace Conference,” Aghjayan shared while he and his colleague Mary Choloyan were busy cataloging documents in the archive.

The archive’s current project reflects the time after the Republic fell, when Armenia’s government was acting in exile, and Armenians had no citizenship in any country, similar to other post-WWI refugees. The League of Nations, an international organization resolving post-war disputes, created the Nansen passport in 1922 to aid refugees, but Armenians were not added to the program until 1924 and could not travel. In response, they applied to the Diplomatic Mission in France. Aghjayan’s grandmother “came to the United States in 1928 on a passport issued by the Republic of Armenia in 1928. There had been no Republic of Armenia for eight years at that point, but the United States Government still recognized and honored that passport, and she was able to enter the U.S. on it.”

The archives hold 20,000 of these passport applications. Each one features “a photograph of the person, their name, where and when they were born, the father’s name and the mother’s maiden name,” Aghjayan said. Also collected are letters attached to the applications and some actual passports, stamped and signed in swooping cursive on large stationary sheets, edges perforated as they were torn out of a register book. These applications are a significant acquisition. They may be the only pages containing so much genealogical information about these Armenian communities. Aghjayan’s team hopes to have the passport applications entirely cataloged and available online by the end of the year. The first 2,000 are already accessible on the ARF Archives website, arfarchives.org.

Alongside the passports, Aghjayan’s team is completing high-resolution scans of thousands of historical photographs, housed in over 30 boxes. They span a wide range of themes and years, and they are being cataloged and uploaded to the ARF Archives website. 

With the archive’s current work explained, it was time to venture into the vault for a peek at the passports and alternate acquisitions. Beyond the basement’s working room lies a large vault. Stepping up into the sealed, temperature-controlled gray room, rows of ceiling-high shelves boast small charcoal boxes. Walking across the room is like a chronological walk through history, each row of shelves preserving a different block of years. Here lie some of the ARF’s great treasures. 

The vault stores letters to the editors of Hairenik’s monthly magazine, which ran from 1922 to 1970, including content that was never published; private papers from influential Armenian figures; and copies of a book celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ARF, filled with photographs and history. 

Aghjayan stopped near the entrance to the vault to point out an unassuming box. Inside lies a collection donated by the grandson of Manoug Hampartsumian, the editor of the Hairenik newspaper from 1914-1916, with documents detailing his life and work. Several of the correspondences are on Hairenik letterhead from the time. The collection also contains letters from his time at Anatolia College in Merzifon, including correspondences to the woman he would later marry while she was at Euphrates College. An active member of the party, Hampartsumian wrote several political letters in the 1920s and 1930s. He was later appointed as a delegate to the World Congress in the 1950s, from which the archive retains his postcards detailing his journey through France, Switzerland, and Cairo, Egypt. The collection is a portrait of his life as conveyed through postage. 

Additionally, Aghjayan recently purchased a scrapbook compiled by someone in Germany during the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian. Tehlirian was found not guilty and freed after assassinating Talaat Pasha, the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, in Berlin in 1921. The scrapbook contains news clippings detailing the assassination and trial. It is believed that Shahbegian, the artist behind Spirit of Armenia, gave Tehlirian the Luger pistol used to assassinate Talaat. Tehlirian’s story and his friend Shahbegian’s painting are now housed under the same roof. 

Last, Aghjayan presented a metal box donated by the Mike Mugerditch Paloulian family of Worcester. The tarnished box is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, with a keyhole in the center. The rest of the center plate is engraved with the ARF name and logo. This box was used for collecting money to buy bullets. There is a hole to insert bills on the left side and a coin slot on the right. Among boxes of paper records, this box is a unique artifact addition to an archive dedicated to preserving Armenian history.

The ARF Archives are ever-expanding. The next addition is a recent acquisition of Hunchak material, expected to arrive soon. After that, the Archives will continue to collect and preserve Armenian culture. 

Consider supporting the archives and its projects preserving history through a donation. Please reach out if you have any ARF documents or photographs that you would like to share.

Author information

Alexandra O'Neil

Alexandra O’Neil is a rising junior at Boston College majoring in Communications with minors in Journalism, English and Theatre. She is an arts contributor for Boston College's newspaper The Heights, and she has written for ECHO Magazine, an online music publication based in Boston and Los Angeles. Her work focuses on performing arts coverage as well as film, music and literary reviews, and she is passionate about telling stories bringing attention to people making a difference in their communities.

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I met the actors of the Puppet Theater of Shushi in a quiet corner of Gyumri, Armenia’s second-largest city, three years after they fled the war in Artsakh. It was their first attempt to get out of forced inactivity. For four months, their colleagues, fellow actors in the theater, had been under blockade in Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh. The only road that was meant to reunite them is still closed today.

Those who remained in Armenia decided to continue their work. Yet the staff of the theater changes. In contrast to their earlier, large team, only two enthusiastic women, Ashken and Lilith, were left in charge of arranging performances.

Since the war, the theater has not charged for tickets, providing free entry to all. The performers work other jobs to earn money, such as hairdressing, working abroad and performing at private events. 

They call themselves a “wandering theater,” but emphasize that they still belong to Shushi. They described Shushi as a city of white-walled buildings and constant fog, reminiscent of Eden. One of these women said that without fog, she feels like she can’t breathe. I recalled cities in Armenia that are also foggy, like Sevan and Dilijan, but she was indifferent.

Author information

Diana Hovhannisyan

Diana Hovhannisyan is a cultural anthropologist, documentary photographer and filmmaker based in Armenia. She has worked as a research assistant for different anthropology programs concerning war, refugee studies and informal education. Her interests include trauma and memory studies, visual anthropology and everyday culture.

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This article is the first in a series about the fall of Artsakh, its humanitarian consequences and relief efforts, based on Lillian Avedian’s on-the-ground reporting from Armenia in October 2023.

On Mike’s first day of preschool, Azerbaijani soldiers attacked his village in Artsakh. 

Mike was born just after the end of the 44-day war in Artsakh in the fall of 2020. His parents did not know if they should celebrate his arrival as a miracle in the aftermath of war or grieve the birth of their first son, who one day might join the thousands of Armenian soldiers killed that autumn. 

On September 19, 2023, Mike and his classmates were woken up from their afternoon nap time by Azerbaijani shelling near Berdashen village in the Martuni district of Artsakh. The teachers did not have time to change the children out of their pajamas before rushing them to a bunker. Mike’s mom Sirun, a 37-year-old history teacher at the local school, was escorting her students to a bunker. Yet her own children consumed her fear. Twice she started to run to the preschool building, but the principal stopped her.

When the shelling started, Sirun’s mother-in-law, 76-year-old Svetlana, stuck her head out of the window of their home and screamed her grandchildren’s names between sobs. Her son beseeched her to go to a bunker, but she refused. She walked around the village for three hours searching for her grandkids. The bombardment was in closer proximity to Berdashen than any attacks the family had witnessed during the 2020 war. The sound of the first shell knocked one of Svetlana’s grandchildren off her feet. 

I met the family in Armenia three weeks after the attack. Mike and his two sisters had just started to talk again, after the shelling had stunned them into weeks of silence. “Everyone was surprised I named him Mike,” Sirun told me. “They said I should have given him an Armenian name like Tigran, one of our Armenian kings. Maybe my heart knew I would go abroad, leave Artsakh for another country.” 

On September 19, Azerbaijan launched a full-scale military offensive on Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh. The Artsakh Defense Army, which did not have the military support of Armenia, was outgunned and outnumbered by the Azerbaijani forces. After 24 hours of intense fighting and shelling, which caused widespread destruction to civilian homes and settlements, the de facto Armenian authorities of Artsakh signed a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement with Azerbaijan, under which they agreed to disband and disarm the Artsakh Defense Army. A week later, they announced the dissolution of all state institutions, which had governed Artsakh since Armenia’s victory in the first Artsakh War in the 1990s, by January 1, 2024. At least 200 Artsakh soldiers and two dozen civilians were killed in the offensive. 

The attack came after a near 10-month blockade imposed on Artsakh by Azerbaijan, which created severe shortages of food, medicine, hygiene products and other basic necessities and precipitated a humanitarian crisis for the region’s Armenian population. In the days following Artsakh’s surrender, over 100,000 Armenians fled from Artsakh to seek refuge in Armenia. Only a few dozen Armenians remain in Artsakh, according to Artsakh officials. During his visit to an emptied Stepanakert, Artsakh’s capital, on October 15, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that Azerbaijan “got our lands back, restored our territorial integrity and at the same time restored our dignity.”

Sirun thinks of the Azerbaijani attack differently. She calls it ethnic cleansing. 

“Their goal was ethnic cleansing. Just like Talaat Pasha said from the beginning, we will leave behind one Armenian, and only in a museum,” Sirun said, referring to the Ottoman leader and one of the architects of the Armenian Genocide that started in 1915. Sirun is eloquent and well-read. She oscillates between rage over the failure of the international community and Armenian leadership to protect Artsakh and detached political analysis. 

Berdashen is one of many Artsakh villages that was encircled by Azerbaijani soldiers from September 19-24, making it impossible to evacuate their local populations. The villages were completely cut off from access to electricity, food and medicine, leaving their residents in the dark, both literally and figuratively, as they could not communicate with other villages and towns in Artsakh or receive information from the authorities. For four nights, Sirun’s family sat indoors with the lights shut off. 

The residents of towns and villages outside of the capital that were not blockaded by Azerbaijani soldiers were evacuated to the base of the Russian peacekeeping mission in Artsakh, which operated out of the Stepanakert airport. There was little food or water at the airport. The Russian peacekeepers offered some bread that had been delivered from Azerbaijan, yet many people refused to eat it. “They kill our children, and then we eat their bread?” one woman told me. “It’s better to go hungry than eat their flour. Didn’t we endure for nine months?”

She’s the 36-year-old mother of teenagers Babken and Ani. She and her family spent four days at the airport. They slept in their car at night, because the airport was so crowded, there was no room to lie down. “You couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating,” she said. 

Two of her nephews died in the September 19 attack. 19-year-old Arsen was killed in the shelling. The doctors amputated both of his legs, yet two hours later he died in the hospital. Arsen’s cousin, who got married two months ago, was also killed. “He was a beautiful boy,” she said, showing me a picture of Arsen in a soldier’s uniform on Facebook. His face was youthful but stern. 

“If a dog had been in our place, it would have died. It was unbearable,” another woman told me, who stayed at the airport for two days with her kids, Sashka and Agnessa. They wailed the whole time along with the other children. They are still frightened by loud noises, reminiscent of bombs.

In Stepanakert, residents watched the influx of people into the city and waited. 62-year-old Susanna made cheese from some milk on an outdoor wood stove to distribute to kids in the bunkers. Her niece Mariam, who is 26, walked through the streets beneath the shelling to find her neighbors’ kids and take them to safety. Mariam has already lived through three wars in her young life. Two of her classmates and one of her cousins died serving in the 44-day war in 2020. She talks about war calmly, as if it is an unremarkable topic of conversation. “We’re used to bombings. We’ve adapted to everything,” Susanna said. 

A year after Mariam’s cousin was killed in the 2020 war, her family removed his body from his grave in Artsakh and transported it to Yerablur, the military cemetery in Yerevan, Armenia. His mom worried that Azerbaijani forces could destroy his grave in case of the outbreak of a new war.

Susanna related her family’s losses without agitation, yet when she spoke about abandoning her mother’s gravestone in Artsakh, she wept. Her mom passed away two years ago. During the 44-day war, Susanna took her mother, who at the time was aging and ailing, to Armenia. “When we returned to Artsakh, my mom said to me, Susanna, please don’t leave me alone. I responded, what are you talking about? Now, I’ve realized this is what she was talking about,” Susanna said. 

“There was hope at the time that we would return,” Susanna added, referring to the 44-day war.

“We’ll go back one day. There’s hope,” Mariam assured. 

“We’ll go back,” Mariam’s mom Mary repeated, mocking and incredulous. 

“God willing. Our houses, our graves. I don’t think about the homes as much as the graves,” Susanna said. “They’ll destroy them. They’ll flatten the graves.”

Since the fall of Artsakh, experts have warned that Azerbaijan will likely destroy Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh, in efforts to eliminate evidence of ancient Armenian presence and sever Armenians’ connection to the land. In Nakhichevan, Azerbaijan’s exclave, Azerbaijan engaged in systemic destruction of the region’s Armenian cultural heritage over the past three decades, demolishing 90 medieval churches, 5,840 cross-stones and 22,000 tombstones. 

Sirun never envisioned that her family would leave Artsakh. Even in the days following Azerbaijan’s attack, when they “weren’t alive,” in Sirun’s words, they baked lavash bread for the coming weeks. During the near 10-month blockade, they had stored vegetable preserves in preparation for the winter. “Berdashen is a beautiful village. Our village’s story dates back to the seventh century. We have a statue that is like Mother Armenia, holding a branch that symbolizes freedom and independence,” she said with pride tinged with longing. 

On September 24, the mayor of Berdashen announced that the road to Stepanakert would open that morning. He issued an order for all residents to evacuate, since Azerbaijani soldiers would soon advance on the village. Sirun’s family stayed with relatives in Stepanakert for a few days before departing for Armenia.

The authorities of Artsakh and Armenia organized the mass evacuation of Artsakh’s population. Artsakh’s president Samvel Shahramanyan visited the Stepanakert airport and announced that five buses had arrived to transport people to Armenia. He gave the option for people to remain in Artsakh, yet nobody wanted to stay.

All of the Armenians from Artsakh I met were unanimous: it would be impossible to live under Azerbaijani rule without fearing for their lives. 

Sirun said that if Azerbaijan had agreed to international guarantees of the rights and security of the Armenians of Artsakh, including the right to practice their language, culture and identity, she would have stayed. During negotiations on the status of Artsakh, Armenia had repeatedly called for such international guarantees, yet Azerbaijan had refused adamantly, insisting that the governance of Artsakh was a domestic matter. “If the 44-day war hadn’t taken place, if we hadn’t had so many losses, it would have been possible to live like we did in the Soviet era as neighbors. But after so many losses and hostility, it’s not possible,” Sirun said.

“After all of these deaths, after being tortured these nine months, how could we have stayed?” Mary told me. “How could I have kept my three sons there?”

“If we thought they would treat us normally, we would have stayed. No one wants to leave their home. But when you know how they’ll treat you, you don’t want to stay,” Ani and Babken’s mom said. 

Offered the choice between living under a regime that had terrorized them for months, refused to offer guarantees for their rights and security, and destroyed hundreds of lives and homes in a 24-hour blitz, or leaving their homes, the Armenians of Artsakh did not see a real choice. Over the course of a week, over 100,000 Armenians packed into cars and government buses and drove to Goris, a border town in southern Armenia, in an unbearable traffic jam. A drive that under normal conditions takes a few hours lasted more than two days, and Ani and Babken’s mom said that it “felt like years.”

She and her family barely had room to stand on the packed government bus. Her 63-year-old mom climbed up a hill on the side of the road to pick apples to distribute to those on board the bus, the only food they ate for over two days. One child kept coughing, but there was no water to offer him. 

The mass evacuation was made more chaotic and tragic by the sudden explosion and fire at a fuel depot in Stepanakert on September 25. Hundreds of cars had been lined up at the depot to get fuel for the long drive to Armenia. At least 200 people were killed in the blast. Seven people from Sirun’s village Berdashen died, including her neighbor Gegham, who left behind two children; her 15-year-old student Vahe; and 19-year-old Marat, who had returned unharmed from his military service. “Marat was a polite, handsome kid,” Sirun sighed. 

The Artsakh hospital, which already had limited resources and medical supplies due to the blockade, was operating beyond its capacity to treat victims of the attack. 120 patients were transported to the national burn center in Yerevan by helicopter. The hospital, which only had space for 40 patients, had to dramatically increase its capacity overnight, including by moving hospital beds into offices. Patients had third- and fourth-degree burns that caused severe internal damage, including lung and heart complications. Sahak Hakobyan, Deputy Director General of the National Center of Dermatology of Armenia, described those first few days as “hell.”

“The patients are not at zero illness. They are at negative illness, because they’ve lived under blockade for nine months and haven’t eaten or slept properly. We’re bringing them to zero then treating them,” Hakobyan said.

About a dozen patients have been transferred to Belgium, Bulgaria, France and Spain for plastic surgery and rehabilitation. 83 people are still being treated at the Yerevan burn center. One boy, whose father has been hospitalized with a burn injury, sits in the hospital waiting room all day. “I don’t have anything in my life. I only have this backpack filled with some clothes and my dad,” he told Hakobyan.

Every Armenian leaving Artsakh was stopped at the Azerbaijani border checkpoint, set up during the blockade to tighten Azerbaijan’s control of any movement in and out of Artsakh. In the past, Azerbaijan has used the checkpoint to prohibit the entry of humanitarian aid into Artsakh and conduct arbitrary arrests of Armenians at the border. 

Armenians from Artsakh reported being harassed and intimidated by Azerbaijani border guards during their mass exodus. When Susanna’s family was stopped at the checkpoint, Azerbaijani soldiers carrying guns said to her, “We’re going to capture Yerevan next. Why are you leaving? Your life will be better here. Stay and be integrated [into Azerbaijan].” Azerbaijani soldiers forced Sirun’s husband to get out of the car. They demanded that he repeat after them in Russian: “This is Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is a strong country.”

People have also reported that Azerbaijani border guards stole their jewelry and valuable belongings to keep or discard. Sirun saw photos of Jesus and the Virgin Mary strewn across the side of the road. Someone in a car ahead of hers shouted at her to hide the cross hanging on her dashboard. She removed the cross and hid it until they reached the other side of the checkpoint. “We have to carry our cross. Everyone carries their cross, their pain, and their lived experiences,” Sirun said. 

In Armenia, the displaced families from Artsakh are facing a severe housing crisis. Those with families in Armenia are staying in tight quarters in their relatives’ homes. The Armenian government has said that it has provided housing for about 68,000 people in abandoned buildings, hotels and houses. Yet many people remain in temporary shelters provided by nonprofit organizations, hastily converted from empty schools, offices and other buildings. 

The Goris Development Foundation, a nonprofit that empowers women to find work and engage in public life, rapidly converted its office into a shelter at the start of the influx of people from Artsakh into Goris. The organization is currently assisting 28 people living at the shelter with securing permanent housing. One family stayed at the shelter for two days while arranging the burial of their grandmother, who died of poor health on the harrowing drive from Stepanakert to Goris. 

“We need to address the housing issue urgently. People can eat or wear a little less, but they can only live under these conditions for so long. We need to solve the housing problem as quickly as possible,” said Ruzanna Torozyan, executive director of the Goris Development Fund.

Torozyan says that, despite its public statements, the Armenian government has not been proactive in securing housing for displaced people from Artsakh. With varying levels of efficiency and will, each municipality in Armenia has identified empty buildings in their districts to convert into housing. Torozyan said she has applied to the government several times over the past three years for funding to house people who were displaced during the 44-day war, yet the funding has never been granted. 

Agnessa and Sashka’s family has been staying at the Goris Development Fund building. The office has turned a large room, reminiscent of a gym or a banquet hall, into a shelter, lining the walls with beds. Laundry hangs on the second floor railing to dry. Their grandmother, 74-year-old Roza, sits on her bed all day and agonizes over everything her family has lost. 

“We had orchards, cows, lambs, chickens. We never had a need for money. We never asked anyone for anything. The Azeris didn’t let us live,” Roza lamented, her voice trembling. 

For infant Sashka, the shelter, with all of its empty space for running around, is a playground. His shrieks and laughter echoed off of the high walls as he sprinted around. “Sashka! My head hurts,” his grandmother complained. “He yells all day,” she said, and her social worker laughed. 

Agnessa tapped my arm to show me her painting of a road. Unlike the traffic-ridden Stepanakert-Goris journey she and her family had recently undertaken, the road was empty, bordered by pastel green grass, pink flowers and a blue sky. 

Following the arrival of the Armenians from Artsakh, Armenian landlords have doubled or tripled housing prices. Torozyan says that a house that used to cost 40,000 drams a month to rent, about $100 USD, now costs up to 90,000 drams, almost $225 USD. Sirun’s family is renting a house along with her mother’s family and grandparents–a total of 12 people–for 350,000 drams a month, about $871 USD, in Harich village. When they arrived in Armenia, she, her husband and three children spent three nights sleeping in their car. Even though the house was beyond their budget, she urged her husband to take it so that the kids would have a place to shower and rest. They don’t have any furniture and have been sleeping on the floor.

For most families from Artsakh, the upheaval of displacement has followed them their entire lives, disrupting their livelihoods as soon as they restore some stability. Many Armenians from Artsakh were displaced from Azerbaijan by pogroms at the start of the first Artsakh war. Tens of thousands of people from Artsakh sought refuge in Armenia during the 44-day war. Ani and Babken’s grandmother has been displaced three times in her 63 years. She was born in the town Hadrut in Artsakh and moved to Fizuli to get married. During the first Artsakh war, she fled to her birthplace, only to be displaced to Stepanakert during the 44-day war. Now, she’s living in Armavir, Armenia with her daughter in a house of 11 people.

“What kind of life is this for the Armenian people?” she said. “We’re all dead, and there’s no one to bury us.”

“In these 30 years, we haven’t slept comfortably. There has never been peace or comfort in our souls. But we never thought there would come a day when we would leave our uncomfortable lives and leave Artsakh,” Sirun said.

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Lillian Avedian

Lillian Avedian is the assistant editor of the Armenian Weekly. She reports on international women's rights, South Caucasus politics, and diasporic identity. Her writing has also been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Democracy in Exile, and Girls on Key Press. She holds master's degrees in journalism and Near Eastern studies from New York University.

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This article is the third in a series about the fall of Artsakh, its humanitarian consequences and relief efforts, based on Lillian Avedian’s on-the-ground reporting from Armenia in October 2023.

On her final day in Artsakh, when virtually its entire population had fled following a brutal attack by Azerbaijan, Kristin Balayan prepared a meal for the employees of her cafe. She ordered them to deliver some bread she had baked to the local hospital, and in their absence, she cooked in her cafe Tumanyan in Artsakh’s capital city Stepanakert for the last time. The meal had the somber, religious quality of the last supper, and the group offered toasts and broke bread as they prepared to leave behind their beloved cafe to an unknown fate. Balayan left the table settings from that final meal intact, in hopes that if Azerbaijani soldiers entered the cafe and saw a table filled with plates and food, they would not destroy it. 

Balayan was among the few to stay in Stepanakert until September 29, 10 days after Azerbaijan launched its full scale assault on Artsakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh, triggering the mass displacement of the region’s Armenians. She prepared free meals for those who remained. After nine months of a devastating blockade, food was scarce, so she got creative. Lacking flour, she baked lavash bread using bran, or “what we feed pigs,” as she disdainfully called it. People donated whatever food they had left in their pantries–“half a bottle of olive oil, some sugar, some noodles,” Balayan recounted–to her cafe before embarking on the long drive to Armenia.

Balayan’s story is representative of Artsakh’s Armenian women, who learned to stretch their resourcefulness as cooks to its limits under blockade. In times of crisis, the responsibility of adapting to new social and financial challenges in order to protect the health and wellbeing of the family often falls on women, who traditionally are the homemakers and family caretakers. They become problem solvers, crafting solutions with minimal material resources besides their own creativity and care. Following the fall of Artsakh to Azerbaijan and the refugee crisis, Armenian women have also adopted the roles of humanitarian aid workers, continuing to utilize their skills to feed and sustain their communities. 

From September 19-20, Azerbaijan launched an assault on Artsakh to capture the territory by force. The de facto Armenian authorities, which had governed the region since the first Artsakh war in the 1990s, were forced to agree to disband and disarm the Artsakh Defense Army. Within a week, about 100,000 people, virtually the region’s entire Armenian population, fled to Armenia. The attack followed a nine-month blockade imposed by Azerbaijan that deprived Artsakh of much of its food supply and basic goods. By the time of the attack, fresh produce, dry goods, fuel, medicine and hygiene products were almost nonexistent. Armenia now faces the humanitarian challenges of meeting the basic needs of the Artsakh refugees and securing long-term housing, employment and social services for the traumatized population.

Faced with the impossible task of feeding their families under a blockade, Artsakh’s women created solutions, crafting recipes with whatever fell into their hands. They made coffee, Armenians’ drink of choice that is always offered to guests, by grinding barley and combining it with salt. Each household developed its own recipe for baking bread, another staple of the Armenian diet, without flour. One woman, the 36-year-old mother of teenagers Ani and Babken, showed me a picture of a recipe she invented, combining rice with yeast and salt to mimic the consistency of bread. “It’s tiring and stressful, when your hands are empty, and your children are hungry and ask for food, wondering what I will give them,” she said. 

In the latter months of the blockade, when food and basic necessities were especially scarce, the government distributed vouchers for procuring bread. People stood in line for hours, sometimes well past midnight, to take a couple of pieces of bread home to their families. On extremely hot summer days, people, especially children and the elderly, frequently fainted while waiting in long lines. 

The mother of young children Agnessa and Sashka invented ersatz laundry detergent by baking bars of soap until they reached the consistency of jelly and combining them with salt. “We don’t know if our clothes were washed or not,” she chuckled. The young mother is full of jokes. She poked fun at the absurd, previously unimaginable steps her family was forced to adopt in order to survive. It appeared to me as her mechanism to cope with the unrelenting stress of the upheavals and uncertainty of the past year.

She filled my lap with vouchers, featuring brightly colored images of fruit, vegetables and dry foods. The government distributed the vouchers for people to obtain limited quantities of food from the state supply. She never got to use the vouchers, because there was no food left to procure with them. She kept the small, square pieces of paper, because her children enjoy playing with the vivid images. “This is vermicelli. This is rice,” she counted, laughing as she held up the vouchers one by one. “We would look at the vouchers and get full. That’s how we lived. We lived through photos. We lived by tricking ourselves.”

Just like their mother, Agnessa and Sashka were quick to smile. Sashka sprinted around the room, his laughter echoing off of the high ceilings. I wondered whether their mother’s humor and capacity for imagination had protected them from grasping the difficulties facing their family and absorbing stress and grief.

I met the family at the shelter of the Goris Development Foundation, a nonprofit that empowers women to find work and engage in public life. The organization has turned a large room, reminiscent of a gym or a banquet hall, into a shelter for displaced people from Artsakh. I sat cross-legged on the floor, in the middle of a cluster of beds, where women gathered to sit and speak with me. Agnessa approached me every few minutes with a drawing made of colored pencils or a card game, asking to play. As I was leaving, she gave me three presents: a scribbled drawing, a pencil and a plastic Easter egg concealing a walnut. 

Ruzanna Torozyan, executive director of the foundation, warned that the displaced Armenians of Artsakh are struggling with severe health issues due to the lack of nutritious food during the blockade. This was exacerbated by limited access to doctors or medical services, since the resources of hospitals and medical institutions were depleted by the absence of medicine, supplies and fuel. She advised that medical experts should conduct research in the coming months to determine the health needs of the displaced population.

Several of the Armenians from Artsakh I met told me that Russian peacekeepers delivered food to Artsakh from Armenia during the blockade and sold it to the local population at higher prices. Following the end of the 2020 Artsakh War, a Russian peacekeeping contingent was deployed to Artsakh. During the blockade, peacekeepers sold a kilogram of sugar for 5,000 drams, about $12 USD, to the local Armenian population. Bottles of olive oil were sold between 5,000-10,000 drams each, up to $25 USD. A pack of cigarettes cost 15,000 drams, or $37 USD. Ani and Babken’s mom told me that a pack of cigarettes is usually sold for 120 drams. “The peacekeepers made good money,” she scoffed.

During periods of upheaval and uncertainty, women, who according to traditional social norms are looked to as the pillars of the family, draw on immense reserves of creativity and resourcefulness to keep their families alive. The women of Artsakh, in addition to the standard expectations of cooking, cleaning and running the household, carried the added burden and responsibility of learning to prepare food, while their home was under the grip of an unrelenting blockade on food and supplies. Their work multiplied, while their capacity for problem solving and invention was on full display. 

To keep her cafe running, Balayan relied on one of the rare foods in easy supply that grows abundantly in Artsakh – chickpeas. She made hummus the centerpiece of Tumanyan’s menu, which she blended without the costly olive oil. She mixed jam with bran to bake cookies without sugar or flour. “Throughout the blockade, our closest clients would knock on the door and enter. They called us mom and dad. We were like family,” Balayan recalled. 

Balayan’s qualifications are endless – in addition to establishing a cafe, she is also the founder of MilaGri, a foundation that supports children with special needs. She opened Tumanyan to use her skills as a home chef for her husband and two children to raise funds to launch a kindergarten. She also held sessions at Tumanyan for kids with special needs to connect with psychologists, speech therapists and rehabilitation services. 

Balayan carries her immense love and longing for her abandoned cafe. “Our most expensive loss is the soul we put into the cafe,” she reflected. She hopes to open a similar cafe in Yerevan, with the same layout – a lush yard with canopies for outdoor seating where she can host community events and educational services for children. Her loyal clients have been pressing her to open a new cafe. “They keep asking me, when are you going to make hummus again?” she shared with a laugh.

While she is still grieving Tumanyan, Balayan has drawn on her endless reserve of resourcefulness and resilience to commence work in Armenia. She has been working for the World Central Kitchen, an international organization that provides hot meals in the aftermath of humanitarian crises. When I met her at the World Central Kitchen operation at the Armenian General Benevolent Union headquarters in Yerevan, she had been working since six in the morning. “I can’t rest. If I don’t work, I’ll go crazy. A normal person would go crazy in these circumstances, so we’re not normal,” she said wryly. 

World Central Kitchen has recruited 18 women from Artsakh, including Balayan, to work for their operation to prepare and deliver hot food to displaced people from Artsakh living in Armenia. Globally renowned chef and restaurateur Aline Kamakian has been in Armenia since the end of September as one of the leaders of the operation. She and the women from Artsakh share a common bond – in the midst of chaos and destruction, they learned how to cook food with little means, and they used those skills in service of their communities.

Kamakian’s Lebanon-based Armenian restaurant Mayrig was destroyed by the devastating Beirut blast in August 2020. She rapidly mobilized her staff to rebuild the beloved restaurant and prepare thousands of free hot meals for Beirut’s residents. “I cooked with the leftovers of Mayrig restaurant. With the wood that was broken, I made a fire. We didn’t have plates. We were in a situation where there was nothing,” Kamakian said. 

Whether cooking free meals after a disastrous explosion or mass displacement, or inventing recipes under blockade, Armenians have learned to cook with limited resources and immense creativity. Armenian women have been the centerpiece of this project, keeping their families and communities alive in their roles as home chefs, restaurateurs or aid workers.  

This theme is woven throughout Armenian history. Kamakian’s grandmother was eight years old when she left Musa Ler, the site of famed resistance against the genocidal Ottoman army in 1915. Exiled from her ancestral lands, she relied on her memories of the smells and tastes of the comfort dishes she grew up with to recreate the recipes of the traditional cuisine of Musa Ler. In Kamakian’s words: “We’ve become creators of food from nothing.”

Author information

Lillian Avedian

Lillian Avedian is the assistant editor of the Armenian Weekly. She reports on international women's rights, South Caucasus politics, and diasporic identity. Her writing has also been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Democracy in Exile, and Girls on Key Press. She holds master's degrees in journalism and Near Eastern studies from New York University.

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“When the lecturer introduced us to our new classmates, I realized that I would quickly get used to this new environment,” said 37-year-old Svetlana Abrahamyan, a student forcibly displaced from Artsakh attending university in Armenia.

Among the 100,000 Armenians displaced from Artsakh after Azerbaijan’s September 19 military operation, 4,600 are students. Many of them have enrolled in new universities in Armenia and are gradually adapting to their new life. Yet professors and students of Artsakh State University have not forgotten the university they were forced to abandon and are demanding its restoration.

According to official data from the Armenian government, of the 4,600 students from Artsakh who can continue their studies in Armenia, 2,100 are in higher education and 2,500 in secondary vocational education. 1,600 have enrolled in state universities in Armenia, according to Public Television of Armenia. 1,086 students from Artsakh are studying at Yerevan State University, 888 of them in the same departments as their universities in Artsakh.

There were two state and two private universities in Artsakh: Artsakh State University, Shushi Technological University, Mesrop Mashtots University and “Grigor Narekatsi” University.

The September 19 attack came in the wake of Azerbaijan’s recent military assaults aimed at regaining full control over Artsakh. The military operation was preceded by a nearly 10-month-long blockade imposed by Azerbaijan on the Berdzor (Lachin) Corridor, a vital route through which Armenians received essential supplies, including medicine and fuel. Consequently, Artsakh Armenians faced severe shortages of essential supplies such as food, medicine, water and electricity. Locals described Azerbaijan’s actions as a “slow-motion genocide,” using starvation as a tactic to compel them to leave the region once the road reopened.

When the attack started, Abrahamyan’s family of seven took shelter in basements until the shooting stopped. However, when the firing resumed, they had to flee their home. As they ran away, her three-year-old cousin screamed in her brother’s arms, “Help, save us.” They didn’t know how to silence the child, worried the cries would reveal their whereabouts to Azerbaijani forces. 

Abrahamyan and her family reached Armenia with great difficulty. They completed the journey from Stepanakert, Artsakh to Yerevan, Armenia, which usually takes half a day, in three days. Since they ran out of food and supplies during the siege, they only took water with them for the long journey.

Abrahamyan is the only student in her home. She studied sociology at Mesrop Mashtots University in Artsakh while working. In Armenia, her family has found a house in the Gegharkunik province, while she completes her master’s at Yerevan State University in the capital city.

“It is difficult to get to the capital, Yerevan, every day. The new professors understand us well. I am not the only student from Nagorno-Karabakh in our course,” Abrahamyan said, adding that many of her classmates from Artsakh are staying in different provinces across Armenia. “Distance is a problem. That’s why there are classes that we do online,” she said.

This year, Anna Hayriyan will not graduate from Artsakh State University as she had planned, but from Yerevan State University. “After Artsakh State University, I chose Yerevan State University. Their names, roles and meanings are very similar to each other, so I made my choice easily,” Hayriyan said.

“At Artsakh State University, our course consisted of seven future journalists. At Yerevan State University, seven of us are together again,” she added.

21-year-old Hayriyan was in the fourth year of her journalism program when the attack started. She served as a news function for all her relatives, leaving the basement where she and her family were sheltering to find out the news on the Internet and report back. 

She drove to Armenia with relatives on September 25, followed by her mother and grandmother on September 26. “We suffered a lot to reach the Hakari bridge,” Hayriyan said, referring to the crossing point between Artsakh and Armenia. “In 18 hours, our car had traveled only 2 kilometers.” Her cousin, Andranik Hakobyan, died at the age of 25 in the disastrous explosion at a fuel warehouse on September 25. 

Students note that there are many differences between the programs at their old and new universities, including the credits and the subjects taught. Yet the professors endeavor to make the learning process easy for students from Artsakh. For instance, Hayriyan said that students from Artsakh only had to answer a few questions on an exam, rather than the total eight. Lecturers also offer supplementary reading materials and provide useful links. 

Nobody in Hayriyan’s family has found a job in Armenia. Her mother is receiving a pension from the government for serving in the military in Artsakh, and her grandmother is receiving an old age pension. Hayriyan still hasn’t received a scholarship promised by the government to students from Artsakh.

Government support and scholarships

The Armenian government has established a scholarship to cover tuition fees for students from Artsakh. Under the arrangements, students will be awarded a stipend that will be transferred to their educational institution to cover tuition for the 2023-2024 school year. The scholarships range from 400-700 thousand AMD, or about $1,000-1,750 USD. 

“The maximum amount of the scholarship is such that we are sure that we will be able to compensate the students almost completely for their tuition fees. They may not need an additional increase, because realistic scholarship amounts have been chosen,” Zhanna Andreasyan, Minister of Education, Science, Culture, and Sports of Armenia, said during a cabinet meeting on October 10.

Yura Margaryan is using his scholarship to study at the National Polytechnic University of Armenia. The 22-year-old excelled in his studies in the Information Technologies department at Artsakh State University. 

“Although the Armenian government has covered our tuition fees, some of my friends studying in departments with higher fees are still awaiting compensation. Additionally, I received an honorary pension [while studying in Artsakh], a benefit that is unfortunately no longer available,” Margaryan said.

Margaryan was the student council vice president at Artsakh State University. He expressed his disapproval of the university’s dissolution. He highlighted the heroic service of Artsakh State University students in the four Artsakh wars, from the 1990s to today. “In memory of those boys, their bravery, and the hope of restoring Artsakh, we must not allow the university to be dissolved. We have to do everything to ensure justice, and the mother university should be reopened soon,” he said.

“Artsakh State University is a symbol”

After the depopulation of Artsakh, students and professors have raised concerns about the restoration of state institutions, with a particular focus on Artsakh State University. Students and teaching staff have voiced a public demand to preserve the university.

During the November 8 session of the Standing Committee on Financial, Credit and Budgetary Issues of the Armenian National Assembly, the chairman of the committee, Gevorg Papoyan, announced that expenses for the maintenance of Artsakh’s state institutions were not included in the 2024 budget draft, meaning the institutions would be dissolved.

Lecturers and students from Artsakh, along with several businessmen from Armenia, have demanded the reopening of Artsakh State University in Armenia. Various public and political figures have also expressed their willingness to teach at the university for free upon its reopening.

“Artsakh State University should not be considered solely as an educational institution. It is a symbol. The intelligentsia forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, along with the students, should unite around it. The dissolution of the student body and a part of the teaching staff in Armenian universities erodes a national value that is the result of decades of consistent and hard work,” Khachatur Stepanyan, a doctor and professor of Historical Sciences at Khachatur Abovian State Pedagogical University, wrote on his Facebook page.

Suren Parsyan, lecturer at the Armenia State University of Economics, has organized lectures for his former students from Artsakh. Parsyan, a Candidate of Economics and Associate Professor, served as an invited lecturer at the Faculty of Economics of Artsakh State University, where he began his teaching tenure in 2022. 

Parsyan provided data indicating that 3,000 students from Artsakh have enrolled at the Armenian State University of Economics, with a teaching staff of 400. Some professors from Artsakh State University have joined its faculty.

Parsyan said that initially, the best option for students and professors was to integrate into universities in Armenia, in order to preserve the right to education and work. “In the future, Artsakh State University will be able to continue its activities as a private university by presenting a program for re-operation. I do not consider the chapter of Artsakh State University to be closed in history,” he said.

Students say that Artsakh State University is not inferior to any university in Armenia in terms of its activities and quality of education. They are confident that one day, Artsakh State University will continue to function in Armenia, and they will resume their education there.

Author information

Anna Harutyunyan

Anna Harutyunyan is a freelance journalist from Yerevan. She is currently studying at the Department of Journalism at the Armenian State Pedagogical University. Anna has successfully completed the one-year educational program at "Hetq Media Factory."

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During my recent visit to Yerevan, my primary objective was to deepen my insights into the country’s healthcare system, specifically focusing on the management of stroke. The journey provided me with a unique opportunity to actively participate in the ongoing efforts and initiatives related to stroke care in Armenia, along with exploring other aspects of endovascular neurosurgery and interventional neuroradiology services. The experience improved my understanding of the tireless efforts within the stroke care community in the nation, further intensifying my dedication to contribute to the progress of healthcare in Armenia.

What is stroke?

Stroke is a debilitating condition that affects millions of people globally each year. It is the second leading cause of death and the third leading cause of disability worldwide. One in every four adults over the age of 25 will have a stroke in their lifetime, 12.2 million will have their first stroke this year and, tragically, 6.5 million will die as a result. Moreover, 143 million years of healthy lives are lost each year due to stroke-related death and disability. 

In Armenia, stroke is the second leading cause of death, trailing only behind ischaemic heart disease, with a mortality rate of 75.5 per 100,000 population. For a country with a population of just under three million and which faces significant financial constraints and disparities in healthcare coverage among its population, stroke poses a major public health challenge. The prevention and effective management of stroke have enormous economic implications as well. Given that a large proportion of strokes occur among people of working age, coupled with the fact that Armenia has a relatively youthful population in contrast to its upper-middle-income counterparts (where a substantial 85-percent of its population is below the age of 60), the impact of stroke on its economy is particularly concerning.

Stroke occurs when there is disruption of blood supply to the brain. This is frequently caused by a blood clot that obstructs a major blood vessel in the brain, resulting in severe and often permanent brain damage. Stroke can significantly alter a person’s quality of life by affecting various functions such as movement of limbs, speech, comprehension and memory and may even result in death. 

What are the risk factors for stroke in Armenia?

Risk factors for stroke include high blood pressure, tobacco usage, physical inactivity, obesity, diabetes, genetic predisposition, stress, depression, excessive alcohol consumption, excess blood cholesterol levels and underlying heart conditions like atrial fibrillation.

In Armenia, unfortunately, these risk factors are prevalent at concerning levels. Lifestyle factors such as tobacco usage, alcohol consumption, high salt intake and insufficient physical activity, along with non-modifiable risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels, are highly prevalent.

To illustrate further, 38-percent of Armenian adults aged 18-69 have high blood pressure, while only 64-percent of those diagnosed receive adequate treatment, and a mere 16-percent have their blood pressure controlled despite treatment efforts. Moreover, 48-percent of Armenian adults are overweight, 20-percent are classified as obese, 30-percent are heavy smokers and average daily salt consumption surpasses recommendations set by the World Health Organization (WHO). Adding to this, the recent war and its aftermath have contributed significantly to high levels of depression, stress and anxiety. These psychological burdens, in turn, indirectly contribute to compromised physical health and wellbeing.

During my time in Yerevan, I noticed an unusually high occurrence of atherosclerotic disease in young patients—a condition where fatty deposits accumulate in arteries, causing blockages and increasing the risk of strokes and heart attacks. In the United Kingdom, where I undertook my medical training, encountering such high levels of atherosclerotic disease in the younger cohort is not something I am accustomed to seeing. In Armenia, unfortunately, this is sometimes considered normal, likely attributable to the disproportionately elevated lifestyle and non-modifiable risk factors listed above. As the population ages, I anticipate that this will only worsen, presenting significant challenges for hospitals and healthcare professionals, many of whom already work in demanding and extremely challenging environments with scarce resources. 

How do we treat stroke?

The urgency in treating stroke cannot be overstated. With every passing minute, the brain sustains irreversible damage. On average, a staggering two million brain cells are lost for each minute that a stroke goes untreated. The phrase “time is brain” resonates here, serving as a reminder of the preciousness of time when it comes to preserving brain function and minimizing the long-term impacts of a stroke. 

In recent years, medical and technological advancements have led to the emergence of a highly effective and minimally invasive surgical intervention called endovascular mechanical thrombectomy (or stroke thrombectomy for short). Stroke thrombectomy is an emergency and often lifesaving procedure aimed at restoring blood flow to the brain. The surgery is performed under either general anesthesia (where the patient is fully asleep) or conscious sedation (where the patient is semi-awake). In the operating room, we make a tiny incision either in the groin or the wrist and, utilizing x-ray guidance, gently introduce a system of incredibly fine catheters and wires into the arterial circulation of the body and navigate these instruments toward the blocked vessel within the brain. Once past the blood clot, we deploy a specialized device known as a stent-retriever, which we position to capture the clot, allowing for its careful extraction under continuous suction. If this proves successful, the outcome is immediate restoration of blood flow and oxygen supply to the affected brain tissue—a potentially life-saving intervention when performed within the appropriate time window.

Development of specialist stroke services in Armenia

I was extremely proud to learn about the way in which Armenia’s healthcare system has embraced stroke thrombectomy, resulting in significantly improved outcomes for patients. The introduction of this procedure has redefined the prognosis for stroke patients in Armenia, offering hope to those who might have faced irreversible brain damage before, and has brought transformative change to our nation’s healthcare system.

Armenia has made commendable progress in the overall treatment of stroke over the past several years. The country has invested in upgrading its stroke facilities and training its healthcare professionals to provide state-of-the-art care. The round-the-clock 24/7 availability of stroke thrombectomy care in Armenia (which is still a rarity in many parts of the world, including some highly developed nations) filled me with immense pride. The fact that Armenia has embraced this crucial aspect of stroke care reflects a progressive mindset that recognizes the potential for improved outcomes for patients.

Although stroke thrombectomy has been available in Yerevan since 2016, it was initially only available to those who could afford to pay for it privately. In February 2019, following productive and dynamic collaborations between an international faculty of experts and the Armenian government, an acute stroke care service was established with the launch of the National Stroke Program (NSP), funded by the Ministry of Health and regulated by experts of the Armenian Stroke Council (ASC). Within the first 36 months of its implementation, over 1,200 patients received stroke treatment. A significant proportion of these patients, and more than 5,000 to date, have hugely benefited from these treatments. This has important implications, as studies have demonstrated that stroke patients who receive proper care in a dedicated stroke unit are more likely to be alive and independent and live without disability a year after having a stroke. 

Thanks to dedicated efforts of enthusiastic experts, international collaborative efforts, innovation and advocacy to drive positive change, Armenia currently offers universal state-sponsored access to specialist stroke centers with a total of four centers available, three of which are in Yerevan, and one in Gyumri. This is fantastic news for our nation but implies that a huge disparity in access to stroke care remains between the capital city and rural areas. Greater efforts are required to ensure that the benefits of stroke treatment are accessible to all, regardless of proximity to Yerevan.

During my trip, I also learned that the quality of training and education for healthcare professionals in Armenia has drastically improved since the introduction of modern stroke protocols. I was fortunate enough to be based at Erebuni Medical Center, which is the largest and most advanced specialized stroke center in the country, performing the highest number of cases in the country. The center is equipped with the most sophisticated and up-to-date operating room and treats many other neurological and neurosurgical conditions, including brain aneurysms and complex vascular abnormalities of the brain and spine.

In addition, residents and medical students in Armenia now gain greater exposure to the management of stroke, and the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Armenian National Institute of Health even offers a Stroke Fellowship Program.

Furthermore, the availability of stroke thrombectomy in Armenia has raised awareness about stroke. Timely recognition of stroke symptoms and prompt medical attention are critical for optimal outcomes, and increased public awareness has contributed to reducing treatment delays. Despite ongoing efforts in the country to raise awareness about stroke symptoms on TV and social media, there is a greater need for comprehensive public health efforts to reduce the incidence of stroke in Armenia, improve outcomes for stroke survivors and lessen the burden of stroke on individuals, families and society.

Challenges

While my experiences were largely positive, I also encountered some of the challenges that reflect the realities of stroke management and healthcare in general in Armenia. Though access to emergency ambulance services and primary care is available to the whole population, there is still a huge proportion of undiagnosed and therefore untreated cases. Post-hospital care also remains underdeveloped for stroke survivors. There needs to be expansion and greater access to neurorehabilitation centers and comprehensive facilities to support patients following discharge from the hospital after immediate treatment in the acute setting. Another issue facing physicians is the lack of additional funding for specific medical equipment and certain newer state-of-the-art devices, which are often imperative when treating more complex cases.

Any action can have a significant impact

Anyone can make a significant contribution to the healthcare needs in Armenia. As healthcare professionals, however, we are in a unique position to raise awareness about health issues, offer consultations, perform surgeries, provide second opinions on cases, participate in healthcare initiatives, source and donate medical equipment and so on.

During my time in Yerevan, I had the privilege to make meaningful contributions by performing procedures, interpreting radiology scans, providing second opinions and donating specialized medical equipment from my own facilities. These resources, which can be extremely expensive and challenging to obtain, were greatly valued by my colleagues in Armenia. The experience also gave me the opportunity to enhance my own professional growth by acquiring diverse techniques and skills from seasoned and exceptionally experienced physicians. I therefore plead all healthcare professionals to consider dedicating time and effort to the Armenian healthcare system by actively participating in healthcare initiatives. This not only holds immense advantages for the nation but also promises substantial personal gains for the individuals involved.

Conclusion

By embracing cutting-edge medical interventions, such as stroke thrombectomy, Armenia continues to take significant steps towards improving healthcare infrastructure and patient outcomes. As the nation continues to evolve its healthcare system, the integration of advanced treatments and diagnostic services will undoubtedly contribute to a brighter and healthier future for the people. Significant challenges remain, but the country’s commitment to continuous learning ensures a promising future. By prioritizing prevention, early intervention and comprehensive support, Armenia can also work towards reducing the economic impact of diseases such as stroke while improving the wellbeing of its people.

My experience has been incredibly rewarding, humbling and eye opening, and I have gained a slightly better understanding of the challenges and triumphs of healthcare in Armenia. Through these opportunities, I have witnessed the dedication of local healthcare professionals working tirelessly to provide outstanding care to their patients within the limited resources available to them. This has given me a deep appreciation for the hard work and compassion that define the medical community in Armenia.

Acknowledgements

Thank you Dr. Mikayel Grigoryan, Dr. David Sahakyan, Kevork Nalbandian, Gregory Boyrazian and the exceptional Erebuni Medical Center staff for making this endeavor a reality.

Author information

Dr. Vartan Balian

Dr. Vartan Jacques Balian is a neuroradiologist in the U.K. Dr. Balian qualified from the University of Liverpool Medical School in 2014 and completed specialty and fellowship training in radiology and neuroradiology in England, obtaining the European Diploma in Neuroradiology in 2023. He has published in peer-reviewed journals, presented at multiple international and national conferences and has held multiple leadership roles, including currently the inter-society lead for The World Federation of Neuroradiological Societies.

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An essay by Catholicos Karekin II of the Great House of Cilicia (1983-1994), later Karekin I, Catholicos of All Armenians (1994-1999), collected in his anthology Հող, մարդ եւ գիր (Echmiadzin 1996). This translation is dedicated to the people of Artsakh, whose land will never cease to wait for their return. 

***

This is the spiritual record of a 1972 pilgrimage along the Iranian side of the River Arax to the ancient monastery of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, elaborated with historical details taken from the chronicles of Arakel Tavrizhetsi, and written particularly under the impression of the desolated landscape of Old Julfa. 

***

Ruin was on all sides: death, collapse, houses guttering in flames. A baleful desert wind had begun to blow over Armenia, a wind which seemed to hunger for the Armenian highland. Often enough already, it had released its malignant breath over the land and the Armenian people living and creating life upon it. Did it take some pleasure from the Armenian soil? By its bitter-breathed visitation, homes were reduced to rubble, churches to ruins, trees to cinders, fields of grain to trampled straw, and people to corpses or beings like corpses, wearing under the names of “captive,” “exile” and “refugee” the very shadow of death. 

 The seventeenth century had newly opened over Armenia. The yoke of slavery was manacled fast around the necks of the Armenian people. The Ottoman ruined and plundered. Taxes oppressed to the point of strangulation. Even breathing had become a kind of torment. Armenia’s buoyant and invigorating atmosphere had become stifling for her native children. The hope of some reprieve had given way to a passionate thirst for liberation, a prospect whose horizon, however, remained so unfathomably distant as to seem unattainable. 

But a gleam of hope suddenly shone from the East, when the people, stooped and gasping under the weight of oppression, heard that the Shah of the Persians was coming to battle the Ottoman Sultan. When the Shah and the Sultan clashed, when force neutralized force, the Armenian expected the yoke to become lighter upon him, to open his chest and breathe freely and deep, to sing his plow song and enjoy the bounty of the soil with a calm heart and unconstrained delight.

With hope spreading from their hearts to their hands, the Armenians opened their arms to welcome the new king, the mighty lord of Persia, Shah Abbas, whose fame had reached Armenia from distant Isfahan long before he arrived. 

When, crossing the Arax River, the Shah set foot on Armenian soil, the lively people of the flowering settlement of Julfa—princes and nobles, artisans and merchants, city-dwellers and laborers, young people and old adorned in clothing “shot through with gold” and “wonderful to the sight,” priests with burning candles, precious frankincense, smoke ascending ring on ring from brimming thuribles, choirs and musicians with songs “befitting to the day,” pure-hearted children in the tender springtime of life bearing golden cups of sweet and fragrant wine—led the august monarch of Imperial Persia over roads bedecked in many-colored carpets from the bank of the Arax to the center of their prosperous city, the stately home of Khoja Khachik.¹ Perched on his seat of honor in that ornate mansion, the son of the khoja, golden tray in hand, offered gold heaped on gold to the gold-hungry Shah. As though entering into competition with the hospitable Prince Khachik, all the other prominent Armenians brought gifts worthy of their illustrious city, offering the best portions of what they had saved in order to satiate the Shah and to rid themselves of what would otherwise surely be taken by violence—“everything, even all of their livelihood.”²

For three days and three nights, there was revelry in Julfa. The king was honored and welcomed in the most lavish manner, witnessing greater luxuries with each passing day. The people of Julfa fed the Shah with delectable foods and fortified him with wines delicately perfumed with the scent of the flowers of Armenia, rendering to him everything that is fitting to a king…

The king observed, and he saw. But no one else could see what he saw. None could read the thought that was taking form in his mind. The Shah did not see only gold. Beyond the wealth, his gaze found its source, that Armenian facility which had amassed it from stone and soil, sea and river, from distant parts of the world, from all manner of trades and arts: the constructive and creative will which here in the stark isolation of the mountains had built up the city of Julfa into a center of commerce and a haven for new feats of craftsmanship. In the proud testimony of the contemporary historian Arakel Tavrizhetsi, “It was a great and illustrious settlement at that time, renowned in all the Eastern world.”

He saw. What he saw, he did not say. He stored it away in the folds of his mind and journeyed on into the depths of Armenia—Yerevan and Van, Baghesh and Arjesh, Manzikert and Alashkert, Ani and Berkri, Artske and Basen, Gandzak and Shirak, Kars and Kaghzvan, and he reached as far as Karin. He saw it himself. He saw it through the eyes of his generals and soldiers as well: everywhere the same people, subject to trial and persecution, laboring under the extremest burden of taxation, a people who kept their land green, wrought cathedrals out of the mountain cliffs, a people who marked their graves with curiously woven stones in the image of crosses blooming into flower. A people who turned the deserts³ of their monasteries into oases of the mind, who drew the subtlest colors from the roots of trees, fashioned parchment from animal skins and made pens of reeds, pens which brought forth an abundance of miniatures and illuminated manuscripts. 

The king saw.

And all at once his mind flew back, returned to his newly constructed capital of Isfahan in the arid interior of Persia, and he thought of the glory he had yet to build for himself…The king was a man of lofty dreams. He wished to build a capital to match the greatness and wealth of his empire. He wished to trace the borders of his empire with the compass of his heart’s urgent desire. He needed graceful hands, productive hands, capable merchants, experienced and versatile artists and artisans, whether from Europe or any other part of the world—only let them be in his capital, for his capital. 

The king saw. 

And the idea that had ripened in his mind saw the sun and came to life. He decided to tear these people from their native country, take them from their own land into Persia, and especially to that place for which his heart beat most fervently—Isfahan. 

His order was abrupt and irrevocable. The mighty emperor knew that an even greater force, under the command of Sinan Pasha, was arriving to repel his advance into the depths of Armenia, over which the Ottomans considered themselves lords and masters. Time was short. The people were many. The road was long. It was necessary to move quickly. 

First he sought with persuasive words and rhetorical art to create the semblance of a voluntary exodus. He called for the eminences of the Armenians and said to them: 

“You have heard, no doubt, that the Ottoman armies have reached Karin and even now are on the march into the depths of Armenia. Soon they will arrive. Our army and theirs will surely meet. Among their ranks number many ‘brigands and bandits and rogues,’ adventurers who know neither law nor order, neither authority nor command, men who, heedless of their commanders and careless even of their own lives, will attack simple people, rob, destroy and plunder, commit outrages against families—and you will surely fall victim to ruin or captivity at their hands. In my mercy, I wish to deliver you. Therefore, let all the children of the Armenian nation come out from their homes, their villages and cities and journey ahead for a few days, so that when the Ottoman armies arrive we may do battle against them. If the Almighty graces us with victory, at that time the people will return to their homes and will remain as our subjects. And if the Almighty grants the victory to them, we will depart and you will return to live as their subjects.” 

The council of the Armenians fell to consideration. Their leader and guide was Father Hovhannes, a learned and thoughtful priest, much devoted to the nation, whom the people in their affectionate and familiar way called “Agha Derder.”

It was autumn in Armenia. A green-tinted yellow was scattered over the mountains and fields, like manna from God’s invisible fingers. After the weary effort of spring and summer, the people deservingly waited for the soil to give birth, to enjoy the fruits of their labor. The grain of the fields had come out in golden ears. The threshing grounds had woven towers and walls of grain-sheaves around themselves. The storerooms of the Armenian homesteads were empty, but cleaned and swept in the hope of receiving their winter inhabitants—root vegetables from the Armenian soil. The grapes in their clusters had begun to glimmer yellow and red; they were filled with life-giving juice. The treading-basins had been prepared, and the clay jugs gave off a glint like the light from happy eyes, prepared to receive new wine imbued with life from the sun of the Armenian world. 

The Armenian nobles looked for a long time at the fields and the threshing-floors, the orchards and barns. It was beautiful, this Armenian world. There was a sweet breath of laughter in the lives of the Armenian people as they braided their own pattern upon the work of God’s hands. Armenian life was boiling over with activity. Everyone was ardently given over to his or her own work. They had to provide for the winter ahead. How could they travel at this, of all times? How could they leave the pregnant fields and the laden orchards? How could they bury the hope of tomorrow’s life? How could they abandon a single stone, a single bush or scrap of ground, their ancestral homes, their churches domed on the peaks of hills, standing out of the gorges, embroidered in stone into the mountain slopes? Where else should they go? And why? Especially in this autumn season, their native land was so sweet to them, its scent so enchanting, that going away seemed a thing as grave and as unthinkable as suicide. 

The eminences of the Armenians went to the Shah and said to him:

“Great king, you see that it is autumn now. We have only just celebrated the Feast of the Cross. This season is our time for working. None of the people have made preparations to leave. Everything they own is still in the fields, or on the threshing-floor, or hanging from the branches of trees. We have no pack-animals or other means of transportation ready. How can we take to the road like this? The able-bodied might walk, but what about the elderly and the children? So we ask your Greatness to delay your command until spring, when we will all be ready to leave.” 

After relating this episode in living words gathered from witnesses to the scene, Tavrizhetsi, the historian of the day, adds: “Thus they spoke, that perhaps the hour might pass from them.”

Like their heavenly teacher given over to spiritual agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, they wished for this cup to pass from them, because they sensed that what was offered, presented with such diplomatic cunning, was the cup of death. Their departure from Armenian soil would mean a twin death: the death of the people, and the death of the land. To leave the land for good and all, to renounce the land, would mean subjecting to an earthquake the ground of their collective national existence. 

But this device of the Armenian elders was all too transparent to the sharp eyes of that seasoned diplomat, the Shah. It was like child’s play to that resourceful master. Shah Abbas’s intention could not be diverted—it was necessary to take the Armenians to populate his country, to mix their sweat with his soil. Such an irrigation would doubtless bear fruit; he himself had seen that rock-quarry called Armenia—and the people who brought forth life and art from the rock. 

Not heeding the pleas of the Armenian leaders, he sent his generals into various provinces of Armenia, some that he had seen, and others he had learned of from his subordinates. Amir-Ghouna, Allahverdi and Mahmoud, along with other commanders who have remained nameless, received an order from the king: “Wheresoever they might undertake it, to drive the people abroad and leave nothing breathing to remain.” With whetted swords and appetites, the generals fell upon the Armenian provinces “as fire driven before the wind passes through dry reeds,” and with swift movements wrested the inhabitants from their native places, turned them out from the homes of their fathers, and drove them like flocks or wild herds to the Ararat Plain. “And they filled the wide plain from horizon to horizon.”

Tears in their eyes, their eyes on the land, the Armenian multitudes looked for a final time at their houses consumed in flames, heard the crackle and shudder of blazing logs. They saw the crops their hands had brought forth going up in fire and smoke, and instead of the smell and taste of warm bread fresh from the tonir they breathed in the stench of the inferno. All of Armenia burned. The country gave way to a spectacle of scorched fields and incinerated forests, shattered villages and cities. 

And all of this was to ensure that the advancing Ottoman army, confronted with a wasteland, would be unable to feed itself and redouble its advance. 

A classic policy…

But not only that. 

So widespread and forceful was the campaign of burning and destruction that in the mind of Shah Abbas it was also and especially a device to break the people from their age-old strongholds and cradles. The first reason was military strategy—to leave desolation in the path of the enemy. But the second motive was a political one. It is to this second intention that the historian alludes when he concludes his description of these heartrending scenes with the words: “So that the people, seeing all of this, would become broken-hearted and never more return.”

Shah Abbas was not afraid of the people. 

But he was afraid of the love for the soil that was nested in their hearts. 

***

After killing the land—and that in such an excruciating fashion—there followed an attempt to eradicate the love of the soil from the people’s hearts. Because the Shah had not only seen the orderliness of the land and its masters’ skilled industry; his eyes had penetrated further to read the love of the fatherland stored up like blood in the hearts of the people. 

What the Shah had seen was witnessed also by a 17th century Portuguese traveler, the Augustinian priest Father Antonio de Gouvea:

“It moved the heart to see this orphaned people, and what they were doing before the gates of their city. Some fell to the ground, embraced the soil, kissing it again and again; others made their farewells to their fatherland and habitations in such heart-wrenching words that it was as though the very walls had consciousness.”

In identity with their inhabitants, the walls became “walls of lamentation” at the moment of their distress. After such long years of intimacy and friendship, those walls could not have failed to receive the love and spirit of their inhabitants, whose warm breath and hands’ caresses were traced layer upon layer into the very stone and mortar. 

It was as though the land bore as much love for the people as the people had for the land, suffering with them often, rejoicing on rare occasions. When the people were with the land, a fountain rose up from it. When they mixed their hands in the soil, grain and grape, bread and wine, life and gladness sprang forth. When the cliffs felt the fine and able touch of their masters’ wonder-working hands, they ceased to be cliffs and became sacredly carved, patterned and eloquent stones, column and statue, arch and dome, khachkar and monument. 

The land has a heart of its own, if we have a heart to feel its heart beating.

The land has a life of its own, if we have breath to feel its life breathing.

Fire could burn the grass of the field, the stalks and the heads of the grain, the branches and fruit of the trees, the posts and beams of the houses. Blows could break down wall and pillar, pulverize statue and khachkar. But neither fire nor violence could reach the heart of the land and of the stones, where the Armenian heart also beats. 

The heart of the land belongs to the Armenian people. Its secret ways are known to them alone, because they have put their heart there, sowed their life there. Because their ‘treasure’ is there, their entire history. And the people know well the words of their beloved Heavenly Teacher, Jesus: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” 

But it would be premature to submit ourselves to the overwhelming current of such meditations. I will continue to follow the historian and his account; there is still much to see in his picture of this people, depicted on the road of exile with the love of the land remaining its soul. 

***

Amassed in hundreds of thousands, in great haste because the Ottoman army was at the Persians’ heels, the Armenian people were brought out of the heart of their country, the Ararat Plain, and driven into Iran. 

The crossing of the River Arax is one of the most calamitous events in the known history of the Armenian people. I will pass over it, so as not to repeat descriptions so often repeated, sketched in stark black lines by the pens of Armenian chroniclers, annalists and historians, descriptions of a kind which send anguish spiraling from the heart to the bowels. The many drowned in the water were joined by the many devoured by the sword. When all was done, the number of the dead equaled the number of the living survivors. 

Here is just one small corner of that panorama of human destruction, like a single detail in a heaving seascape summoned up by Aivazovsky’s brush. A detail which is the most significant of all, the most characteristic of our people and its sacred marriage with the land. There is an invisible, mystical narod⁴ binding our people with its natural world. 

A narod which many men and states have tried to unravel, supposing that the divorce of the two would be the death of both.  

A narod which Armenian grandfathers have always passed down to Armenian grandchildren, with a Khrimianesque blessing.⁵

A narod whose history has been told in a thousand and one episodes by the likes of Tlgadintsi, Zartarian, Hamastegh and Oshagan; those who immortalized the Armenian soil with the wondrously formed power of our written language before returning to dust and earth themselves.

And here is one scene in the history of that narod, which shines forth lucidly in the otherwise sad and revolting, death-colored history of the Armenian people’s exodus from Julfa. 

The Shah had seen Julfa. The luster of the Julfans’ golden presents had shone into his eyes and remained there. As a guest in the house of Khoja Khachig he had seen what skilled tradespeople they were, their facility for commerce. Among all the people deported from Armenia, the Julfans had a special place in the mind of the Shah. With care and caution he made arrangements for their exodus to Isfahan. 

He assigned this delicate task to his general Tahmazghuli, a Christian apostate of Georgian origin. The Shah prepared a decree instructing him to drive the people of Julfa “expeditiously” into Persia “and leave none to reside there, not even a one.” For him, the skill and grace of every last Julfan was a stone in the city which he would build to his glory. 

Tahmazghuli gave his assignment a ceremonious character. He called for the city elders. In the public square, in the presence of the people, he read the decree in which it was plainly ordered “that they should rise up out of their places and go into the land of Persia.” He threatened to put to death by torture anyone who dared to disobey the rule of the all-powerful Shah. Then heralds ascended to the rooftops of the city and with voices like alarm bells proclaimed the order to every Armenian household. In their high, strained voices, the heralds screamed:

“We give you three days’ term to leave the city and to set out for Persia. In three days, if any man is still found in the city, we will punish him and his entire family with death, and appropriate all of his goods. And as for malingerers or those who try to hide, their properties will belong to whoever can reveal their hiding places, and their heads will belong to the King.”

The command smelled of death to a people who had witnessed much death already. Their minds and hearts had no more room for the idea of death, for more grief and anguish. The reddened waters of the Arax were reflected red in their pupils, like a fog darkening the sun. With tears in their eyes, the natives of Julfa began to gather their belongings in preparation to depart. 

Many of the soldiers, along with bandits gathered like predatory birds from the surrounding Turkic villages, entered the city, and the looting began. It was a marvelous opportunity—not one to be missed. The plunder was rich, their appetites sharp and insatiable. 

Abandoned in spirit, drained of strength, broken-hearted and plundered, the people of Julfa left their homes and, stream on stream, began to pass over the roads of their city toward the edge of the Arax River. They had heard the river’s monotonous sound every day of their lives. But it was a song sweet to their ears, sweet as a folktale telling of centuries long gone by.⁶ The river was the source of all the order of their lives. The gentlest and most loyal friend they had known. They had woven songs on its banks, joined in play with its lapping and chuckling waves and their thousands of graceful games. And now, for those who had fallen into the waters and remained there, the river had become an all-consuming grave, and, for those who passed over alive, a barrier of thorns separating them from their fatherland. 

Like rivulets of tears, the people passed side by side over the roads of Julfa to gather under the city walls. The walls defending the city had become walls of lamentation. Some of the people mourned for their homes and workshops, others for their native soil, some for the churches and others for the graves of their forebears. With piteous voices, with tearful laments, they departed from all they had built up with fervent songs of love and exultation.  

Near the city gate was located the Church of the Holy Mother of God. The priests had convened there, and they had gathered together the keys of all the churches, intending to hand them over to the Blessed Virgin for protection. The multitude pressed in around the priests. They brought the keys of their own homes, joined them to the keys of God’s House, and together with the priests, they began in a unanimous voice to bring their hearts forth from their lips; beseeching with every thread of their being, they prayed:

“Holy Mother of God, you who gave us the Key of Life, our beloved Jesus, you who know that we have opened the doors of our hearts with His heavenly key, the Holy Gospel, you who know that we have cast all of our keys in the type and likeness of your Holy Son, we now entrust the keys of our churches and homes to you, so that you may return us from those foreign places where we are being driven.” 

Love for the land.

Veneration for the native home.

Did they depart, or did they remain?

They were departing with that which was bodily removable—their fleshly existence. But they would remain with that which was above the conditions of time and space—with their soul, which that day had absorbed like a sponge all their love for their native soil, their fatherland, their unbreakable feeling for their own country. 

The River Arax flooded over strangely that day. The reason was not the streams of tears welling over from Armenian eyes. Mother Arax, that age-old witness of Armenian suffering, had taken many tears into herself already. 

The river ran over that day because, after committing the keys of their spiritual and physical homes to the protection of the Holy Mother of God, the Armenian priests and people cast them into the Arax, and the Armenian river took them like holy relics and stored them away in its bed. 

The last consolation for a people orphaned from their land—with a sacred covenant, they entrusted their patrimony to their mother, the Arax River.  

And this took place in the year ՌԾԴ of the Armenian calendar, 1605 A.D.

***

It was the month of May in the year ՌՆԻԲ of the Armenians, the year of our Lord 1973. 

I was walking on the old road along the bank of the Arax. Spring was on all sides. The river was high, cloudy water surging up against the banks all along its wandering course, and clamoring endlessly. On the opposite bank was the stateliest cemetery of the Armenian people, the eternal habitation of many thousands of Armenians whose good fortune it was to close their eyes and take their rest in Armenian soil. 

The survivors of Old Julfa had crossed over to this side of the river and traveled deep into the southern provinces of Iran. The dead had remained on the other bank and, mingling with the soil, returned flesh and bone to the earth, but remained alive thanks to the Julfa khachkars, those most beautiful examples of the Armenian art of memorial sculpture, immortalizing their memory and preserving their spirit.⁷

My eyes linger very long over this forest of tombstones. The words of the poet suddenly take life in my memory, circling over the distant landscape. 

“As a tree to my dead have I planted this cross.”⁸ 

It seems to me that in the absence of their living people the khachkars have become trees, symbols of the endurance of the Armenian people, of our nation’s forward-looking life. Some are grown over with moss. Some have lain down on the ground. Some have slumped halfway to the earth. Many have remained standing, proud even in their four hundred years of orphanhood. 

There is nobody there to light a candle upon them, to burn incense on their pedestals, to recite a litany for the souls at rest and sing “In Supernal Jerusalem” in their memory.⁹

All at once, the stark mountains of Armenia meet my eyes like inextinguishable candles grouped around the khachkars, the clouds around their skirts like bands of fragrant smoke, the melodious chuckle of the Arax River like a hymn inaudible to mortal ears.  

O happy dead! 

I sit on the bank of the Arax, on a cliff unviolated by the long centuries, and I watch the river. Memories of centuries long past rise again in my mind. And at that moment, the most insistent of those memories is that of the keys to the churches and households of Julfa…

Where are they now, those keys? In what crevice of the riverbed are they hidden; under what layer of murk are they buried? My eyes search in vain. The Arax is impenetrably cloudy. And cloudy it must remain, in order that none might search out and discover the keys of Armenia, which have locked inside themselves the love of Armenia’s soil and homes, of the Church and of the Fatherland. The keys were cast into the water with prayer, with tears, with sacramental mystery. They, too, have hearts, and they know their true owners. The Arax has spread its heavy gray sheet over them. The river has promised to keep them until their owners’ return. And the Arax will not run clear until her people come home. But before the eyes of the Armenians, the river is always prepared to tear open her curtains of silt, to become as transparent as a tear, as mirror-glass, so that the all keys of Armenia might come to light once more. 

And my mind encounters in the waters of the Arax all of those keys which the people of Armenia have buried in the land, concealed in the clefts of the mountains, kept under stones or in caves. 

And these are suddenly coupled with a memory from my childhood in the village of Kessab. Whenever we villagers left home as a family, after locking the door, we would keep the key in a hole in the wall, or under a stone, or in an opening in the trunk of a tree, someplace where it would remain far from the crooked gazes of crooked men. 

So when the Armenians were forced to depart once and for all from the homes of their fathers, having at best a faint hope of return in their hearts despite their unyielding faith and burning will to come home, where did they keep their keys? 

In the riverbeds and deepest gorges of the Arax and the Akhurian, under the pillars of Ani, inside of walls, wherever the keys would remain concealed from sidelong eyes, not fall captive, so that the enemy would never use their tongues to open the houses of Armenians. 

Let them break in and destroy. Have they not destroyed enough already?

But let them never rule over the Armenians’ land, their private homes—the highest and most inalienable of human and national rights—with Armenian keys made by Armenian hands. 

Keys, keys of Mother Arax—

Admit no rust to yourselves. The Armenian hands which made you, used you, kept you sacred, which wait for you even now—you will always belong to these hands, which long for you eternally.  

Keys, keys of Mother Arax—

When the clamor of the river subsides for a moment, open your ears and hear the song of your makers’ children, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the new and unswerving generations of Mother Ararat. 

From the depths of my heart, I die with longing for the land of Armenia.¹⁰

Keys, keys of Mother Arax— 

Your sleep has lasted very long. Do not fear. Your master is awake. Alongside with you, the water has kept the voices of your owners, who entrusted you to the maternal protection of Mother Arax and the Mother of God. Let these voices, mingled into the current of the Arax, fresh and evergreen as unfading flowers,¹¹ be as a melancholy lullaby to your centuries-long slumber, sounding in chorus:

 Return us from those foreign places where we are being driven.

Sleep easy, until the day when you hear your owners again, the voices of the sons of the sons of the sons of their sons, singing:

“Awake, new people!”¹²

And at that time—

May the doors of hope be opened once more for the ineradicable nation of the Armenians.¹³

 For Persian Armenians of the 16th to 18th century, khoja or khawaja was an honorific used for prominent merchants.

Notes

¹For Persian Armenians of the 16th to 18th century, khoja or khawaja was an honorific used for prominent merchants.

²See Mark 12:44. 

³Անապատ, “desert” in Armenian, is the name for the part of a monastery reserved for postulants and anchorites.

⁴A narod is a string wound from white and red threads representing the water and blood that ran from Christ’s side at His Crucifixion (John 19:34), used to place the cross around a child’s neck at baptism. Kept throughout life, the baptismal narod is traditionally used to crown bride and groom during the marriage ceremony, and finally interred with the dead. 

⁵Mkrtich Khrimian, popularly known as Khrimian Hayrik, was the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and the Catholicos of the Armenian Church from 1893 until his death in 1907. Karekin is referring to his work “Պապիկ և Թոռնիկ,” “Grandfather and Grandson,” a book of instruction and exhortation addressed with parental warmth by Khrimian to the Armenian people.  

⁶This sentence quotes from the poem “The Tears of the Arax” (Արաքսի արտասունքը) by Raphayel Patkanian (1830-1892).

⁷Since the time of Karekin’s writing, the ancient cemetery of Julfa and its tens of thousands of khachkars dating back to the sixth century have been systematically destroyed by the government of Azerbaijan, which currently controls the province of Nakhichevan. 

⁸The quotation is from Levon Zaven Syurmelian, (1905-1995), a survivor and orphan of the eradication of the Armenians of Trabizon in 1915. Karekin intentionally exchanges the positions of “cross” and “tree” in the original line.

⁹A requiem hymn of the Armenian Apostolic Church: In supernal Jerusalem, in the dwelling-place of angels, where Enoch and Elijah grow old like doves, worthily glorified in Edenic paradise, Merciful Lord, have mercy on those souls of ours who have fallen asleep.

¹⁰Words from a 20th-century Armenian popular song.

¹¹A reference to the hymn Antaram dzaghig (“Unfading Flower”) dedicated to the Virgin Mary, attributed to the fifth century historian St. Movses Khorenatsi. 

¹²From a 12th-century hymn written by St. Nerses Shnorhali, sung during the nighttime offices of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The full line reads: “Awake new people, taking up a new song to Him who renews all things.”

¹³“The doors of hope” is a quotation from the poem “Cilicia” by Nahabed Rusinian, which, set to music by Ottoman Armenian composer Gabriel Yeranian (1827-1862), has become a beloved Armenian song.

Author information

Thomas Toghramadjian

Thomas Toghramadjian is a deacon of the Armenian Church and a graduate student of Armenian literature at Yerevan State University.

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“Every piece of this place is Armenian. You will never build happiness on our blood, pain and tears. If I don’t come back, then my son will. If not my son, then my grandson will. Artsakh—this is the name of my revenge.” 

Mary Asatryan pasted this note on her fridge on September 27, 2023. Asatryan, the assistant to the Artsakh Ombudsman, left the message for the future Azerbaijani occupiers of her home. “A couple of days before the forced exodus, I had so many thoughts and feelings. Before leaving my home at 6 a.m., I delved deep into my heart and wrote that note. I had to see a light at the end of the tunnel to stay sane. I had to feel that we would return. My revenge could be hope. I don’t have the right to throw my arms up. I will fight till my last breath, and maybe I won’t see it, but my descendants will,” Asatryan told the Weekly.

Asatryan’s roots are from Moush in historic Armenia. She spent her very first paycheck on a trip with her grandmother to her ancestral Moush. She was born in Armenia but grew up in Russia. Asatryan clearly remembers her trips to Armenia and Artsakh growing up and how she would anxiously wait for the summer so she could be in the homeland. She obtained two master’s degrees, one in Belgium and the other in Armenia.

Growing up in the diaspora, Asatrayan was afraid of losing the homeland and made a conscious effort on the path of repatriation. In 2020, Asatryan was in Moscow and remembers feeling survivor’s guilt while sleeping in a warm bed while her brothers and sisters faced a war in Artsakh. When the 2020 Artsakh War ended, Asatryan decided to move to Artsakh. Her family was very concerned since she did not know anyone there. Nevertheless, her family knew that moving to Artsakh was the right thing for her to do, as an Armenian. 

Artsakh was her heart’s calling. She wanted to personally experience the homeland and build her knowledge. She knew that Artsakh was in a constant state of war and that the war never ended, but she felt that it was her personal responsibility to assist however she could. “We have this naïve expectation that the world is going to help us, but we are the only formula,” Asatryan said.

Asatryan applied to iGorts, a program that invites diaspora professionals to serve in the public sector in Armenia and Artsakh, and became the assistant to Artsakh Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan, moving to Artsakh in September 2022. While her contribution felt like a drop in the ocean, she had to do what she could. “If every Armenian did what they could in their sphere, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” Asatryan said.

Shortly after Asatryan moved to Artsakh, Azerbaijan launched a brutal nine-month blockade on the region in December 2022, restricting all movement and trade between Artsakh and the outside world. Asatryan struggled with not seeing her family, living alone and enduring the blockade with immense deprivations. She documented her personal and professional experiences under blockade, sharing daily updates of the challenges on social media in hopes of raising awareness of the severely underreported crisis. “Our life was invisible, with no gas, no electricity, and I had to bring that reality to people. I felt like I was preaching to the choir, since most of my followers already knew about the blockade. But I had to document. I did the best to utilize my pivotal role,” Asatryan said.

While Asatrayan lived far from her family in Artsakh, she was never alone. “The story with the toothpaste: In one of my interviews I said that I no longer had toothpaste, and as there was nothing to be found in the shops of Stepanakert anymore due to the 10-month-long blockade, I was trying to find other solutions to organize my normal life. Apparently, someone watched that interview and decided to surprise me by bringing toothpaste and leaving it at the reception desk of our office with a small candy. I hadn’t had candy for ages! This is the way we survived during the blockade—helping each other, sharing everything we had left,” Asatryan said.

On September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched a full-scale assault on Artsakh, with the aim to ethnically cleanse its Armenian population and conquer the region. That morning, Asatryan had come home for her lunch break. All of a sudden, there was an explosion. She saw people running down to the shelters and followed them since this was her first experience in a war. Her neighbors had already lived through four wars. 

People expected that Armenia would save Artsakh, and when reality hit that it wouldn’t be the case, the situation became even more painful. In their darkest times, the locals prayed and hoped that Armenia would come to their aid, but this ended in disappointment. In the final days in Artsakh before the forced exodus, there was intense fear that the local Armenian population would not be able to enter Armenia. 

After the attack, public officials were detained. and journalism was shut down. Asatryan continued to share information on her Instagram page. She believed she wouldn’t be able to post once Azerbaijan installed its own internet towers. 

Asatryan believes that Artsakh is not a territorial issue, but rather is deeply rooted in ethnic hatred and the desire to evict the Armenian nation. “We need to take them more seriously. We must be vigilant, because they are arrogant and daring, because they have impunity. We need to mobilize like we did before. We have the spirit, and nothing is impossible. They get away with their blatant aggression, because there is no punishment,” Asatryan said. “We can’t make peace with a side that doesn’t want our existence. The enemy didn’t change, because there was no punishment for 1915, for the Shushi Massacre of 1920, for the Baku, Sumgait, Kirovabad pogroms. We can’t be naive about the enemy’s intent.”

Over the week following Azerbaijan’s attack, over 100,000 people, virtually the entire Armenian population of Artsakh, fled to Armenia. Some residents, especially the elderly and people with physical or mental illnesses, could not leave Artsakh. There are no clear numbers as to how many Armenians are still in Artsakh, but Asatryan said a couple of dozen were brought to Armenia with the help of the international Committee of the Red Cross. 

Through its attack, Azerbaijan destroyed Artsakh’s infrastructure. Water was not safe to drink, and people could not maintain a normal life. Besides leaving, the only other option was slaughter. “People knew there would be no protection for the Armenians once Azerbaijan took over. Despite our love for the homeland, we knew that we had to save the people so that we could mobilize in the future,” Asatryan said.

Asatryan was one of the last people to leave Artsakh. She was isolated, the only person left in her apartment building, in a ghost town that was now Stepanakert. Asatryan did not want to see her city like that but faced conflicting feelings of not wanting to leave. She decided to stay alive to bring awareness, which built her resolve. “Every day that passed became harder to say goodbye. Our office was one of the last ones to leave, because we had to make sure that the Armenians who were forcibly displaced from the villages were able to get to Armenia,” she said.

Asatryan believes she must carry the identity of the people of Artsakh, revive her community, preserve the Artsakh dialect, save its cuisine and make sure that the Artsakh Armenians do not leave Armenia. She vividly described Artsakh’s spirit as containing pure Armenian values and the best qualities of the Armenian people. She recalled the spirit of the people and their resolve never to forget their heroes like Vazgen Sarkisyan, Monte Melkonian and Dushman Vartan. 

“The melon story: A couple of days before the war of September 19, I was working late in the office, giving an interview on air. As our office had an open-door policy, and generally it was very safe in Artsakh, we never locked our doors. At some point, someone just walked into my room and left a melon on my desk. I couldn’t get distracted from the conversation, and I didn’t manage to see who that was. But then, I searched for that person and figured out it was a young mother, a local journalist, who followed my activities online and decided to thank me for my work this way. Back then, it was almost impossible to find any fruits or vegetables for sale, so she found two small melons for her child, and on her way home she saw that my light was on and I was still working in the office, decided to leave one of them for me, saying, ‘You are a child, too’,” Asatryan said.

Most villagers from Artsakh had never been to Armenia. Armenia was the safe haven, but the hopes of a good reception from the government were quickly snuffed. There was a very warm and caring reception from ordinary people and charity organizations that volunteered during the days of the exodus on the border of Armenia and Artsakh. Artsakh Armenians were surprised by this, because during the 10-month-long blockade and isolation, it seemed that nobody cared about them. 

However, people’s expectations vis-à-vis the government were not met. The Armenian government only gave some financial help. Psychological services were very limited. Preserving the communities and keeping the villagers together became a daunting task. Artsakh Armenians did not know if they were refugees or citizens. 

“My entire time in Artsakh, I never felt alone or abandoned because of the Artsakh people. I wish Armenians treated Artsakhtsis with the same hospitality and warmth that the Artsakh Armenians deserved. When the Artsakhtsis came to register at the refugee centers, the government was placing the forcibly displaced Armenians near the border villages. This was leading to more trauma, since there would be threats of war again. The forcibly displaced Artsakh people wanted to settle in safer places like Yerevan, but they couldn’t afford it. Half of the people didn’t accept the government’s offer,” Asatryan said.

“I was in a national dance group called Tnjre. The dance group was named after an Artsakh historical tree. It was established in Shushi. We lost people in the 2020 war. Some left. We held classes during the blockade and danced at the Charles Aznavour hall in darkness, but we used dance as resistance. We even gave a performance at the end of May. Now, we are all in Armenia, but we are logistically so far apart from one another,” she continued.

Every family from Artsakh has lost at least one member. More than 20,000 people have perished over the course of four wars in Artsakh in the past 30 years. People have lost homes, lives and loved ones. They have rebuilt homes and livelihoods, but grief is still evident in every family. 

“Speaking, documenting, posting has unlocked thoughts and feelings and has had a therapeutic effect,” Asatryan said. “Artsakh is life and love, never pain. Even losing Artsakh doesn’t change this for me. My love for my homeland was more than anything else. I found my roots. The blockade showed me real values, friends, family and culture. I thought I was strong before in the comforts of the diaspora, where I lived with no deprivation and hadn’t experienced hardships. Artsakh is my happy place, and it’s been the place where I have been the happiest ever,” Asatryan said.

“We shed so much blood, but justice will prevail, and we will be on the right path,” Asatryan said. “War is the other side of peace, but the price paid for peace has been the highest. We must analyze and reflect on our mistakes so that history doesn’t repeat itself. We have a moral duty to our ancestors and to our coming generations. They have a right to have a homeland.”

Asatryan invoked three pillars: Armenia, Artsakh and the diaspora. She said, “One of the pillars is temporarily destroyed, and this should be seen as a threat to all Armenians. An existential threat means we are all threatened. The diaspora has a huge role to play, and the only thing that will save us is human capital. We have done it before, and we can do it again. Our future deserves effort. Our answers and solutions are in our roots.”

Author information

Talar Keoseyan

Talar Keoseyan is a mother, educator and writer. Talar’s books "Mom and Dad, Why Do I Need to Know My Armenian Heritage?", "Tigran’s Song and "Our Tigran" are available on Amazon. She has been an educator for 26 years and resides in Los Angeles, CA. She can be reached at talar725@gmail.com.

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Exactly 108 years ago, on December 30, 1915, the First World War was raging, and the forces of evil were already trying to exterminate the Armenian population. But thousands of miles away, in Chicago, Illinois, the Maghakian family was celebrating the birth of a beautiful baby named Victor. This little boy was the first child of Dickran and Alice Maghakian, two Armenian refugees who were forced to leave their beloved land. Victor grew into a kindhearted, friendly and cheerful teenager who always had a smile on his face. He was the oldest of four brothers and three sisters. As his father worked hard at the steel mill, Victor took on much of the responsibility of raising his younger siblings. In 1930, the Maghakian family moved from Chicago to San Diego, California.  

The defining moment that changed the course of Victor’s life happened in 1936. On an ordinary sunny day, Victor made the decision to join the U.S. Navy. He felt it was his duty to serve his country and couldn’t wait to go overseas. Later that day, he headed towards the U.S. Navy recruiting office, but as he walked past a movie theater, he decided to buy a ticket to watch Pride of the Marines starring Charles Bickford. The movie was a revelation for Victor, who immediately headed towards the Marine Corps recruiting office instead. Shortly after, the Maghakian family moved to Fresno, California, and lived next to William Saroyan, the legendary Armenian American novelist who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940 and won the Academy Award for Best Story for the movie The Human Comedy. After saying goodbye to his loved ones, Victor was sent to Asia and was stationed in the Philippines and China for four years. He fulfilled his duties admirably and was frequently sent to different countries. Victor’s extensive understanding and knowledge of foreign bases and societies led him to be nicknamed “Transport” by his fellow Marines.

In early 1942, Victor was among the 900 Marines (out of 15,000) selected to join the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. Only the best Marines could become members of this elite Battalion. By August, the time had come to confront Japanese forces on Makin Island in the Pacific Ocean. During the raid, Platoon Sergeant Victor Maghakian demonstrated remarkable courage and outstanding determination, but while leading his men, he was struck by enemy fire. His forearm was injured so badly that he struggled to remain conscious. Ignoring pain and fear, Victor wrapped up his open wound and launched a successful solo attack against the Japanese position. Shortly after, Victor received medical first aid and was ordered to return to the rear, but he refused to do so and kept fighting with his brothers-in-arms. For his bravery and leadership on Makin Island, Victor was awarded the Navy Cross, which is the second highest military decoration for valor and extraordinary heroism in combat. The American war movie Gung Ho! was based on the Makin Island raid led by the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion. Victor’s role was played by famed actor Sam Levene.

A few weeks later, during the deadly Battle of Guadalcanal, Victor and his comrades were ambushed and pinned down by heavy fire. In order to save his men, Victor stood up and revealed his exact position, so that the Japanese soldiers would come out of their hiding spots. Victor’s wrist was struck by enemy fire, but thanks to his incredible act of courage, his men were able to kill all the Japanese soldiers. After the Battle of Guadalcanal, Victor spent two months in a U.S. Navy hospital in Oakland, California. During that time, he married the love of his life, Vera Karaoglanian. They couldn’t wait to spend the rest of their lives together, but Victor had to end this never-ending war, so he returned to combat duties. In January 1944, he volunteered to participate at the Battle of Kwajalein, where he killed several Japanese soldiers and captured two. A month later, Victor was fighting on the Eniwetok Atoll, where he saved the life of Private First Class Lee Marvin, who later became a famous actor.

Throughout the entire war, Victor led his men through some of the bloodiest fighting in seven South Pacific campaigns.

Following the war, Victor returned to Fresno and later moved to Las Vegas, where he was employed by a hotel and casino from 1954 to 1974. This true Armenian American hero died of cancer on August 17, 1977, at the age of 61, and he is now resting in peace at the Ararat Cemetery in Fresno. Looking back on her brother’s life, Victor’s sister stated: “He was a quiet and dedicated man and was always very calm, except for war. He was such a giving man.”

At this moment in time, when the forces of evil are still trying to exterminate the Armenian population, the extraordinary story of Victor Maghakian must encourage all Armenians to never give up, never give in and never lose hope. Outnumbered by ruthless enemies, and relentlessly attacked, Victor always prevailed, and so will Armenia.

Author information

John Dekhane

John Dekhane grew up in Paris before moving to the South of France. He works for a sport organization in Monaco. Since he was a child, he has always been interested in World War II with particular emphasis on American soldiers. In order to honor them, over the past years, he has located and purchased WWII U.S. artifacts in Europe and donated these items to more than a hundred museums in the United States.

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Note: On January 1, 2024, the Republic of Artsakh was officially dissolved per the decree signed by Artsakh President Samvel Shahramanyan on September 28, 2023, following Azerbaijan’s full throttle military assault that resulted in the fall of Artsakh and the ethnic cleansing of its Armenian population. According to the decree, all Artsakh state institutions have been dissolved, and the republic has ceased to exist. Siranush Sargsyan’s report highlights the ongoing humanitarian crisis arising from the genocide carried out by Azerbaijan against Artsakh and the profound needs of the forcibly displaced Armenians of Artsakh.

One year ago, the depopulation of Artsakh began with a blockade imposed by Azerbaijan on December 13, 2022. It was completed on September 19, 2023, when Azerbaijan launched a military assault on Artsakh to seize the territory and forcibly displace its population. In the past year, the people of Artsakh have endured a nine-month siege, a two-day war, forced displacement and the loss of their homeland. Now 100,000 Armenians from Artsakh are living as refugees in Armenia.

The stories of displaced families are all unique, yet they share a common harsh reality. Families grapple with a spectrum of challenges—social, psychological, economic and cultural—and carry stories of survival and strength amid the uncertainties of their circumstances far away from their homes. Armenian municipalities, diaspora Armenians and international organizations have been working together to address the immediate needs of the displaced, including food, hygiene and household items. But the problems are diverse and difficult, especially the issues of finding affordable apartments for rent, providing necessary household appliances and furniture and securing employment.

Lilit Sargsyan, a single mother from Askeran, Artsakh, with her six-year-old daughter and parents now call Khachpar village in the Masis municipality of Armenia their home. Unable to afford rent, Sargsyan, with the help of friends, acquired a makeshift cabin, or a domik. Her father is working hard to renovate the cabin, hoping to shield the family from the winter cold. Her grandmother’s old carpet, the most precious thing she brought with her from Artsakh, makes the home a bit warmer.

Currently teaching at Khachpar Secondary School, Sargsyan regards her teaching years in Artsakh as the most meaningful and cherished period of her life.

Sargsyan has experienced four wars in her lifetime. She says the most challenging was the recent two-day war in September. Facing a military attack after nine months of blockade, the family had no access to hiding places, food or transportation. Organizing care for her disabled daughter during the siege was especially tough. She could not take her daughter to the rehabilitation center twice a week like she used to due to the lack of fuel. She did not know how to explain the daily struggle for food to her daughter.

“Everyday after 6 o’clock was the hardest moment for me. Although I missed my daughter during the day, I didn’t want to go home, because I had nothing to give her,” Sargsyan said. “When there was nothing, she ate spaghetti, which until the blockade I used to cook a lot for her with oil and salt. But I couldn’t buy it. Then a friend of mine gave me three kilograms of real white flour, which was a miracle for me at that time. I tried to make spaghetti with salt, water and flour, and it worked. She loved eating it. There was no oil, so I added lard, but she didn’t understand and ate it with pleasure.” 

In Khachpar, Sargsyan’s family found a warm welcome. “Perhaps it’s because many here are refugees from Azerbaijan due to the 1990s Artsakh War and those who settled after the 2020 war. They understand us better,” she reflected. However, challenges persist. The Armenian government has issued a temporary protection status to forcibly displaced people from Artsakh. Like most families, Sargsyan is still waiting to receive documents confirming their status and cannot access child benefits, while her parents cannot receive their pension.

According to the decision adopted by the Armenian government, people forcibly displaced from Artsakh have been granted the status of temporary protection, rather than citizenship or refugee status. Only after receiving a document confirming this status along with temporary registration can forcibly displaced people receive their pensions or child benefits.

Tens of thousands of forcibly displaced people are still waiting to receive the document confirming their temporary protection status and have not received their pensions for three months. They are also unable to benefit from a number of state subsidy programs and benefits due to the lack of timely registration.

While residing in Artsakh, residents had used passports of the Republic of Armenia. It is insulting and incomprehensible to Sargsyan, and many other displaced people from Artsakh, why she should now choose between giving up her passport in exchange for another one or being considered a refugee in her own homeland.

Sargsyan yearns to return to Artsakh yet struggles to envision coexistence with Azerbaijanis. “We just don’t feel safe living with Azerbaijanis. Talking about security is absurd, especially if we aren’t going to have an army or any other way to defend ourselves,” she said. Asked what she would bring with her from Artsakh to Armenia if given the chance, she said, “Perhaps our pineapple and pomegranate crops have turned into bird feed or rotted.” She would bring saplings from those trees and open the window of their house to prevent mold.

“We just don’t feel safe living with Azerbaijanis”, says Lilit Sargsyan, a singe mother forcibly displaced from #NagornoKarabakh #Artsakh pic.twitter.com/YWf3qXQHO3

— Siranush Sargsyan (@SiranushSargsy1) December 7, 2023

According to the deputy mayor of Masis, Khoren Aroyan, in the first days of the mass displacement, about 12,000 people from Artsakh settled in the town of Masis and neighboring villages. Some of them have since moved to other regions of Armenia, and about 8,500 displaced people remain. 

After the Baku and Sumgait pogroms against Armenians during the first Artsakh War, many people with roots in Artsakh fled to Masis. After the 2020 war, many people from Artsakh once again sought refuge in Masis among their relatives and friends.

Sarushen is one of many villages in Artsakh that was fired on by Azerbaijani forces throughout the blockade, restricting agricultural work and garden cultivation. When the war started on September 19, Ivan Harutyunyan from Sarushen could only save his family members, leaving behind everything else he cherished. 

“We left our lands, our livestock and our ancestors’ graves,” Harutyunyan said with a heavy heart. “We had no choice but to abandon everything and escape through the forests.” His journey of forced displacement from the Artsakh capital Stepanakert, lasting almost three days, led him to the town of Goris in southern Armenia and then to Masis.

“I regret losing the four tractors I used not only for our gardens and arable lands but also for the entire village. We can rebuild houses, but how do we work without equipment?” Harutyunyan said. 

Today, he shares a room in a former, dilapidated library building with several families, including those of his three brothers, totaling 31 people. Despite efforts by the municipal administration to provide beds and essentials, living conditions are challenging. Families share a single toilet-bathroom, and there is no kitchen. The struggle for normalcy persists, a common thread in the lives of the displaced.

Alina Harutyunyan, a mother of four children, was displaced from the village of Harutyunagomer in the Martakert region of Artsakh. Her family was involved in pig breeding, poultry farming and cultivating buckwheat. When Azerbaijan attacked, she had to leave behind the unfinished corn harvest and embark on a migration journey with her family.

Alina, a mother of 4, was forcibly displaced from #NagornoKarabakh
She currently resides with her family in a room within a half-demolished library in Masis.There is no kitchen and they cook in the hall and they share a single toilet with thirty other forcibly displaced people pic.twitter.com/rrrSk5c9B6

— Siranush Sargsyan (@SiranushSargsy1) November 25, 2023

They found temporary refuge in a room of the same library where Ivan Harutyunyan and his family are staying. Since there is no kitchen, Harutyunyan and other displaced women cook dinner on a small gas stove in the hallway.

Harutyunyan was only able to bring essential documents with her. With the assistance of the community administration and diaspora Armenians, her family has received beds and a small refrigerator, which are still insufficient to meet the needs of the families sharing the tight space.

Harutyunyan hopes that, with continued support from benefactors, she can secure a refrigerator, dishes, household items, a television and computer for her two children, who are in school. “We all get together in the evenings and try to watch something on my daughter’s phone. It’s our only source of entertainment,” Harutyunyan said. Just like Ivan, Harutyunyan faces the challenges of making a home in the confines of a library, hoping for a brighter future with the kindness of those willing to help.

“Every time we start again from scratch,” began a conversation with 44-year-old Svetlana Mamunts, a mother of four children. 

Mamunts’s family was forcibly displaced from the village of Aghabekalandj in the Martakert region of Artsakh. “When the explosions started, I was kneading dough. I left it unfinished, took my children and went into the basement,” Mamunts recalled.

Mamunts and her family managed to escape and reach Stepanakert with a neighbor’s car. The Azerbaijani checkpoint that every car passed through while exiting Artsakh was particularly terrifying for Mamunts. “All those who had a man in their house went through that fear and mentally said goodbye to their relatives,” she said. They spent several days sleeping in cars, and after a three-day journey, they arrived in Armenia. The rented house they now occupy has almost nothing. 

The family left behind two cars, and if they had fuel, they would have brought at least their household items with them. “But the most difficult thing is that we left our land, our house, our cattle,” Mamunts lamented. She regrets not bringing her sewing machine, which she used not only for herself but also to fulfill orders from villagers.

“Everyone wants to go back, but at what cost? If we have to live with Azerbaijanis, I will not dare to take my children there under any circumstances,” Mamunts shared.

“It is the third time we have become refugees and lost our home, and we seem to have adapted to it, but for those who lost their home for the first time, it is very difficult. I try to calm them down,” said Ellada Harutyunyan.

When the Artsakh independence movement started in the 1980s, Harutyunyan lived with her family in Baku, Azerbaijan. During the Sumgait and Baku pogroms directed against Armenians, Azerbaijanis stabbed and killed Harutyunyan’s father. Her family arrived in Yerevan on December 7, 1988, the day of the devastating Armenian earthquake, then left for Artsakh. 

Watch this interview with 60-year-old Elada, thrice displaced Baku Armenian. She had to flee anti-Armenian pogroms after her father was stabbed to death. The 2nd time was during the First Karabakh war & most recent she was ethnically cleansed along w/ 150K Artsakh Armenians. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/ja0zKUBXDe

— Siranush Sargsyan (@SiranushSargsy1) November 27, 2023

After the end of the first Artsakh War, her family settled in Aknaghbyur village in Artsakh. “As bees return to their nest, so we returned. The call of the motherland is inexplicable,” Harutyunyan said. With that call, after the 2020 Artsakh War, even though Aknaghbyur was occupied by Azerbaijanis, Harutyunyan’s family returned to Artsakh and lived in Stepanakert with rent. “If there is an opportunity, we will all return. It is our centuries-old homeland. We left our history and our sanctities there,” Harutyunyan said.

After Azerbaijan’s military assault on Artsakh in September 2023, it was difficult for the Harutyunyan family to make the decision to leave the homeland. Throughout the blockade, Harutyunyan’s husband guarded the border with other soldiers. Yet seeing that everyone was leaving, the family also took the path of migration. 

Harutyunyan finds it difficult to describe the two-day journey from Artsakh to Armenia. “People died on the road, and new ones were born. People were getting sick all the time,” she recalled.

Now Harutyunyan lives with her husband in the non-functioning Kindergarten No. 4 in Masis, Armenia. Another 67 displaced people from different villages of Artsakh live in the kindergarten building. There are no supplies or proper living conditions, but the families cannot afford to rent a house. “Even now, we seem to be waiting for something to happen. And you wonder, where are we going next? Is this ever going to end?” Harutyunyan posed.

Anahit Tamrazyan, a 37-year-old mother of six children, was displaced from Haterk village in the Martakert region of Artsakh. Her family worked in gardening and animal husbandry. Following Azerbaijan’s attack, they fled in a truck and drove to Armenia. “When we left the village, I managed to let the cattle go so that at least they wouldn’t die of hunger,” said Tamrazyan.

When the fighting started, Tamrazyan’s eight-year-old son Davit initially thought he was hearing the sounds of construction, but he quickly composed himself and ran to the basement. He misses his friends, who he last saw during the deportation, but he could not approach them to say goodbye. Davit dreams of becoming an artist, but in his letter to Santa Claus, he asked for a toy weapon. “To return to our village and protect the village,” he explained.

“Although we were close to the border and it was dangerous, we were home. All my children find it very difficult to adapt here,” Tamrazyan said. Despite the difficulties of the blockade, Davit believes life is better in their village in Artsakh. He hopes to return to see his friends, Hansel and David.

Author information

Siranush Sargsyan

Siranush Sargsyan is a freelance journalist based in Stepanakert.

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Armenians forcibly displaced from Artsakh experienced a deeply emotional Christmas Eve in Armenia on January 5, 2024 within the hallowed walls of St. Gayane Church in Etchmiadzin. Conducted by the Artsakh Diocese, this service marked an unprecedented moment for the Armenian community. For the very first time, the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh gathered to celebrate this sacred night on Armenian soil, away from their native lands.

The Chragaluyts, or Candlelight Divine Liturgy, holds a significant place in the heart of Armenian Christian practices. It’s a vivid embodiment of sacred light, mirroring the celestial glow of the Bethlehem Star, an important symbol in the Christian narrative. According to Christian texts, this star played a crucial role in guiding the Magi to the newborn Christ. The Chragaluyts service at St. Gayane Church is a pivotal cultural element, transcending the bounds of a mere religious rite. It weaves together faith and ancestral heritage, particularly resonating with Armenians displaced from Artsakh.

In this spiritually charged atmosphere, the act of taking lit candles and lamps back to their homes is a cherished tradition among the faithful. These candles are not only sources of physical light; they are laden with symbolism and considered carriers of blessings. The practice represents the transfer of the holy light from the church to the home, symbolizing the presence and protection of the divine in their personal lives.

The 2024 Christmas Eve celebration in Armenia for the people of Artsakh was not just a religious event; it was a poignant reminder of resilience, cultural identity and the enduring spirit of a community facing the challenges of displacement. It highlighted the deep-rooted traditions and the strong faith that continue to guide and comfort the Armenian people, especially those from Artsakh, in times of upheaval and change.

Author information

Anthony Pizzoferrato

Anthony Pizzoferrato is an Italian American freelance photojournalist, documentarian and filmmaker based in Yerevan, Armenia. His work places emphasis on reporting and documenting conflicts, political events, complex social issues, human rights and cultural history within post-Soviet states and the Middle East while creating understanding, intimacy and empathy. His work on the war in Ukraine and protests in Yerevan has been published in Getty Reportage.

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For the past few months, I have had the great privilege of working through the collection of over 3,500 photographs in the archives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF).

The photographs have been meticulously scanned and thoroughly cataloged already by some colleagues. My job has been to go through the list, fix or fine-tune whatever needs an extra pair of eyes – at times involving some engaging and surprising supplementary research – and upload the images onto the photographs section of the website. Some finishing touches have often been further supplied by more colleagues still. It is a real team effort.

Now that we are past the 1,500 mark of uploaded photographs, I have put together a few brief articles for the pages of the Weekly highlighting some themes and takeaways from the collection. This venerable newspaper has shared insights from the ARF Archives on more than one occasion in recent years. Beyond anything else, I would like to invite readers to have a look at the images for themselves at arfarchives.org/photograph. Maybe you will find a great illustration for a report, a fun tidbit to share with family and friends, or a familiar face or two – relatives or ancestors, perhaps?

To start with, it is worth asking: just what is an archive, anyway? What gets to be called an archive – as opposed to, say, a scrapbook? How are archives even made?

The term “archive” can be quite broad. It comes to English via French and Latin, ultimately from the Greek arkhe, meaning “beginning” or “first,” the same root for “archeology.” That is also the same root possibly shared with the Armenian arka [արքայ], meaning “king.” In Armenian itself, the word bahots [պահոց] could be used to mean an archive – suggesting a place for storage. Another word is tivan [դիւան], which is more associated with courtly, official record-keeping. 

All of the above suggest a systematic documentation of materials – so, maybe indeed like a scrapbook, but much bigger, covering a longer period of time and including information and objects that have probably had some measurable impact on society. Official archives have public significance, after all – history worth preserving and sharing. The archives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation are now in the process of being made more and more accessible for that very reason.

At the same time, how archives are compiled requires judgment and pointed effort. Getting up to the level of “systematic documentation” can be tricky, costly and time-consuming. In addition, some items never get preserved or get lost along the way, for all sorts of reasons (wars, natural disasters, conspiracies, carelessness…). For scholars studying the origins of government and statehood, the spread of bureaucracies serves as a strong indicator of the organized regulation of public life. Their activities tend to be especially directed towards conscription and taxation – controlling armies and money have long been the most important characteristics of governments. The establishment of archives forms part of such processes.

However, if there ever were a nation that could not claim a regular, stable political path, it would be the Armenians. And so it comes to pass that the ARF Archives present, in fact, a motley and not-necessarily-systematic collection of materials, whatever has managed to survive. In one of his very last public lectures – delivered at Soorp Khatch Church in the Washington, D.C. area in May 2023 – the late Prof. Richard Hovannisian recounted how he first came across the boxes of documents pertaining to the Republic of Armenia in Boston covered by a thick layer of dust. That was probably sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. The record-keeping of the young republic of 1918 is certainly included in the ARF Archives – to whatever extent possible given the upheavals of 1918-1921. Papers from the ARF as a political organization are likewise there. The photographs, for their part, stretch from the era at the beginning (arkhe!) of the Federation of Armenian Revolutionaries (as it was first called) of the late 19th century, all the way up to the 1970s, possibly later still.

One reason why it is important to share the photographs far and wide is the first theme from the collection that would strike anyone clicking through the website – a lot of unknowns. Many of the posts are entitled “Unknown Man” or “Unknown Group.” One of my favorite parts of the job is deciphering the handwriting that appears on the back of many photographs. Sometimes it is quite clear. Other times, a few good guesses need to be thrown in with accompanying question marks. And then, very often, there is no information at all accompanying the pictures. But they still need to be shared. So they go on the website as an “unknown.” I hope that someone somewhere will recognize the subject or the event and eventually chime in.

My colleagues and I recognize these imperfections in the archives. We also acknowledge our own limitations in the way we document and share them. Library science and database management are well-established disciplines and practices. We are doing our best with the chief aim of opening up the materials at the ARF Archives to the public. In future, we hope to be able to preserve and present these materials even more professionally, with more detailed records. Right now, we intend for the website to serve as a tool and resource for a broad audience.

(The ARF Archives is glad to hear even now from scholars and researchers, if anyone wishes to make a specific project proposal for a closer look and first-hand access to materials, depending on their availability.)

For my own part, I can say that, for example, choosing to transliterate between Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian pronunciation standards has been challenging when putting up the materials in English. Publishing information in the original Armenian would also be worthwhile at some point down the line. That is just one detail that comes to mind as I sift through episodes of history and understand my own responsibility in shaping how generations to come will perceive generations past. That is another impact archives have, directly or indirectly.

In the meantime, going through the collection is like unwrapping a Christmas present with every click. You never know what’s going to happen, who’s going to show up next! We Armenians already get two Christmases every year. People working on archives evidently get multiple Christmases a day.

In future glimpses into the ARF photo archives, I shall curate some images from the collection – many of them thought-provoking, some surprising, at times funny and always interesting. They form a part of our collective story and now give us the chance to form a fuller picture of our past.

Author information

Nareg Seferian

Nareg Seferian has lived, studied and worked in New Delhi, Yerevan, Santa Fe, Boston, Vienna, Istanbul and Washington, DC. His writings can be read at naregseferian.com.

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As mentioned in “Glimpses into the ARF Photo Archives: What is an Archive, Anyway?”, the materials in the collection offer a mix of items from the late 19th century on, capturing some recognizable historical figures and moments as well as images that have, for good reason or by chance, ended up among the 3,500 or so photographs across almost 40 boxes.

While going through the pictures, smoothing out the kinks in the catalog, performing additional research where needed, and uploading the images onto the website, I have pondered on a few themes and take-aways to share. This series of articles for The Armenian Weekly is meant to draw  attention to these pieces of the jigsaw puzzle of Armenian history and, above all, to invite readers to have a look at arfarchives.org/photograph for themselves. You never know what you might find there: an ancestor or relative, a friend, or an accompaniment to a school project or community event.

In the previous article in the series, I noted that there are many items marked “unknown” in the collection – especially “Unknown Man.” Here is one typical such entry.

Another similar image is, to me, among the most arresting of the portraits in the ARF photo archives.

There is a depth to the expression in this picture that makes me consider it to be more of a work of art than a bureaucratic record.

These two pictures showcase a pattern of portraits, some of them with numbers noted on the back. They seem to be from the early 20th century, possibly members or recruits for the ARF in the United States.

Another, similar series is evidently from later, probably from the 1940s.

There is a chance these are images of prisoners of war from the Soviet army, at a camp in Germany – maybe the displaced persons at Funkerkaserne? But who would have taken these photographs and why, and how could they have ultimately found themselves in the ARF photo archives?

One of my favorite parts of going through the pictures is taking note of such mysteries and trying to solve them. Although the exact source of these images is yet to be verified, the quality of the pictures and the clothing certainly suggest a later time than the others displayed.

Those are some of the patterns to note in these specific pictures. One pattern in general in the ARF photo archives is that the unknowns are almost always of an “Unknown Man.” There are very few pictures in the collection that include women or depict women alone. This may not be so surprising, given the more patriarchal norms at the turn of the 20th century, but it is a pattern that holds even among the pictures from later.

Another, more fun, pattern to observe is the dapper fashion from the 1900s, 1910s or 1920s – the clothes, the hairstyles and the paraphernalia that went along with those decades.

Mustaches galore! The early 20th century was a time for unabashed facial hair. Out of the photographs uploaded so far, the most magnificent mustache award without a doubt goes to Garabed Bedrosian.

This was a bit more of a fun look at the ARF photo archives. Click through arfarchives.org/photograph and see if you can identify patterns or items of interest for yourself. A lot has happened in the past century and a half, needless to say. Many aspects of Armenian history and culture find their reflection among those photographs. Among other things, maybe you will find part of your family’s journey echoed in the pictures as well.

Author information

Nareg Seferian

Nareg Seferian has lived, studied and worked in New Delhi, Yerevan, Santa Fe, Boston, Vienna, Istanbul and Washington, DC. His writings can be read at naregseferian.com.

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The original interview, conducted by Vartan Estukyan, was published in Agos in Turkish on January 7, 2024 and translated to English for the Armenian Weekly by Vural Özdemir. Estukyan is a journalist at Agos who reports on culture, art, music, human rights and current politics.

Hangardz Independent Theater Ensemble, founded by a few young Armenian actors from Istanbul, debuted on World Theater Day in 2018 with their play “Mer Çunetsadzı İrarmov Kıdnenk” [Let’s Find in Each Other What We Don’t Have] at the Synergy World Theater Festival in Serbia. Hangardz’s new play, William Saroyan’s “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” debuted for audiences in 2023. The group, which continues to stage the play, is preparing for its first tour of “My Heart’s in the Highlands” in 2024. Vartan Estukyan spoke with Yeğya Akgün, co-founder of the Hangardz Independent Theater Ensemble, about Hangardz and the current state of Armenian theater. 

Vartan Estukyan (V.E.): What gap does Hangardz fill in Armenian theater, the theater of the Istanbul Armenian community and the theater life in Istanbul?

Yeğya Akgün (Y.A.): Hangardz is an independent theater ensemble founded by a group of professional Armenian theater artists who gathered around a shared dream five years ago, with the will to perform theater in their native language, Western Armenian, and to reflect universal theater values along with their local motifs and colors. The theater ensemble was founded under the name ‘hangardz’, meaning ‘suddenly’, which conveys how we embarked on this journey.

When we look at the Istanbul Armenian community’s theater life in the last 20 years, I do not think it would be wrong to talk about a theater life led by amateur groups established within associations and schools or using the stages of these schools or associations. However, when we examine the much earlier history, it is possible to situate Armenian theater in a place opposite to this narrow area. To put it more clearly, when we contrast the contemporary moment with the establishment of theater in the Ottoman Empire and the Armenian theater artists who contributed to the development of Republican theater, we see that Armenian theater in Istanbul has since withdrawn to the confines of its own borders, with comedy plays that are generally repetitive. The theater does not have the will to open up to a larger society and is restricted to within the Armenian community. 

Hangardz is an ensemble whose precise missions are to open the doors of Armenian theater from local to universal after these long temporal gaps, to remember and to remind a society that is attempted to be rendered without a memory about Armenian theater, and while doing this, Hangardz prioritizes existing in its native language. In fact, we are saying this: “Come and hear our story from us too, after a long pause!”

V.E.: How do you choose and evaluate your plays? What kind of a filter do you run them through?

Y.A.: Our priority is to stage plays by Armenian writers. Our aim in doing this, as I just said, is to remember Armenian writers in a society that is attempted to be rendered without a memory, to make the colors they added to the literary history of this country visible again, and to emphasize, without bending the narrative, the points that will open up the audience to some questioning and critical thinking. 

Our first play was created with the verses of Heranuş Arşagyan, a young woman writer who passed away at the age of 17. Our second play was the story titled “Kantsı” [Treasure] written by Zaven Biberyan. Then we performed Hagop Baronian’s “Bağdasar Ağpar” as a closet drama, and in 2023 we continued our journey with our playful genius William Saroyan’s “My Heart’s in the Highlands.” 

In fact, while remembering these writers, the issues they touch upon and the question marks they leave in people’s minds, we encourage the audience to question many untouched areas and the need to do research. For example, after our first play, many of our audience members requested from us the Turkish translations of Heranuş Arşagyan’s verses and Zaven Biberyan’s story “Kantsı,” which also prompted many people to ask new questions about 1915, the Wealth Tax and the pogroms as a result of the importance that “Kantsı” attaches to life. With “My Heart’s in the Highlands,” we are seeking for an answer to the question, “Where is a person’s home?” with our audience, and we are receiving striking feedback from such different identities that it makes us all happy as a team to be able to send out even a piece of stimulatory and questioning signals to the collective memory.

V.E.: What kind of challenges do you experience as an independent collective?

Y.A.: First of all, I would like to point out that the Armenian community urgently needs an independent stage. This is necessary not only for Hangardz but also for independent Armenian artists to be able to use it whenever they want, to rehearse, introduce their works, give concerts, stage their plays and hold workshops, without restricting themselves and their creative processes and without financial concerns. The reason I insist on underlining this is that people and organizations that carry institutional responsibilities will unfortunately have to bend their words in their work so as to take into account the interests of the institutions and relationships they represent, a kind of self-censorship.

Collective principled collaborations between independent artists in an independent venue will take Armenian theater, music, dance and art to a higher level.

The second is the issue of providing more financial support, but this should not be realized with vertical solidarity. What I mean is this: “I support you, and in return I have such and such conditions!” Such a form of solidarity harms our independent identity and independent principled production, so we need horizontal solidarities that extend beyond time and geography; that is, “I support you, because your existence and principled values are extremely valuable to me, for the peoples and fundamental rights, and for the past, present and future generations!” I think that we, as a society, need to understand and internalize this form of horizontal solidarity a little more.

V.E.: What are your future projects?

Y.A.: As Hangardz members gain experience in new staging styles and techniques through different workshops and training, it will pave the way for the plays currently waiting to be staged. There are many projects that my friends want to realize. Of course, this can be possible through financial and moral support. I have had a dream of staging a play related to Gomidas since my high school years. One of my most important goals is to stage the genius of Gomidas through an interdisciplinary work, and one of the upcoming projects I have been thinking about for a long time is to bring to the stage the life of Vahram Papazyan, who has written his name in history in golden letters with the character “Othello.” Our priority is to stage each of these plays in our native language, Western Armenian.

Another project of ours is the Hangardz Writers Collective. Our first article was written about Hagop Baronian’s life and his valuable works produced in many fields such as theater, journalism and publishing under difficult conditions in the second half of the 19th century. As the Hangardz Writers Collective, we would like to produce, on a regular basis, articles and writing at the intersections of art, culture and topical subjects.

V.E.: In your opinion, what is the biggest problem faced by Armenian theater and association theaters in Istanbul? What is the state of association theaters? What should be done to restore Armenian theater to its former condition?

Y.A.: Actually, it would not be right for us to answer this question exactly, because the plays staged by very valuable theater people such as Hagop Ayvaz, Misak Toros and Arto Berberyan and their struggle for the art of theater 30-40 years ago are still remembered with great respect. I wasn’t even alive in those days, but considering the more recent period of the last 20 years that I can remember, I think it is necessary to move away a bit from repetitive plays that are not quite compatible with theater motives. I am in favor of considering the processes as a whole. Of course, it is an option after long hours of work in the office to go to the association or the school stage, rehearse for a few hours and make plays that do not require much thought. The audience may wholeheartedly laugh at these comedies, but how much they contribute to professional Armenian theater and its deserved place is a serious mystery.

We can gradually raise the quality and the bar of our association and school theaters with, first of all, the support of institutions and society, but also with works that are independent from institutions, performed by experienced independent artists beginning from the alphabet of the theater, so to speak, and at the end of an arduous process through which contributors prepare together as a whole. 

V.E.: You also do radio theater. What have you performed so far, and where can we listen to them?

Y.A.: The radio theater recordings that I started in the first days of the pandemic and performed in Western Armenian have truly turned into a corpus today. There is a recording archive of approximately 30 episodes on Spotify and YouTube, and especially students taking Western Armenian courses received these recordings with great interest. Through social media channels, I reached a wonderful audience, especially outside Turkey in the United States and in France, and moreover, an Armenian institute in France offered to add subtitles in three languages (English, French, German) to these recordings and save them in their archives, which I gladly accepted. So far, I have performed the works of Hagop Baronian, Yervant Odyan and Rober Haddeciyan. During this process, I learned how to edit and strengthen the theme with effects and music. I must admit, it was a fairly difficult process. I have recently discovered some Armenian texts written for radio theater, and soon new episodes will be available to listeners on platforms such as Spotify and YouTube (you can search for “Yegya Akgun” or “Western Armenian Radio Theater” and subscribe).

Author information

Vartan Estukyan

Vartan Estukyan is a journalist at Agos who reports on culture, art, music, human rights and current politics.

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By Yeghia Tashjian, M.A., Benyamin Poghosyan, Ph.D., Michael Rubin, Ph.D.

In the wake of President Joe Biden’s affirmation of America’s renewed engagement on the global stage post-2020 elections, U.S. foreign policy faces a complex landscape in the post-Soviet space, underscored by the tension between democratic ideals and authoritarian forces. Historically, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States fostered warm relations with Russia and the nascent independent states, actively supporting nuclear disarmament and democratic transitions, albeit with varying degrees of involvement across regions. U.S. policy has traditionally been cautious in the South Caucasus, balancing support for democratization with strategic interests, as evidenced by its tempered stance on the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute. However, the limited response to the second Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war and the subsequent Russian-dominated ceasefire have highlighted the constraints of U.S. influence and spurred a reevaluation of its role in regional dynamics.

Recent regional turmoil, from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine to the fraught tensions in Artsakh, has catalyzed a strategic pivot in U.S. policy towards the South Caucasus. The Biden administration’s approach signals a readiness to engage more assertively, advocating for humanitarian support, acknowledging indigenous rights and reinforcing self-determination for the people of Artsakh. The U.S. rejects external territorial ambitions over Armenia, emphasizing the inviolability of established borders and promoting a recalibration of regional power dynamics to curb Russian influence. This potential renaissance in American diplomacy, underscored by a commitment to Armenia’s security and regional stability, challenges the narrative of U.S. ineffectiveness and seeks to shape a future grounded in democratic values and peaceable state relations.

Introduction

After his November 2020 victory in the U.S. presidential elections, Joe Biden declared, “America is back.” The United States would once again take its involvement seriously in the world. President Biden’s vision of 21st-century geopolitics as a battle between democracy and authoritarianism implied more U.S. involvement in the post-Soviet space to deter and counter Russia and its like-minded allies. 

Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States sought to establish warm relations with Russia and the newly independent Soviet states. President George H.W. Bush was solicitous of Russian concerns and coerced Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to forfeit their legacy Soviet nuclear arsenals. At the same time, the United States supported democratization and eventually European Union membership and NATO accession for the three Baltic States. 

Washington’s approach to the Caucasus was more restrained. It supported a diplomatic process to address the Azerbaijan-Armenia dispute and generally stated its support for democratization, albeit tempered by the desire to treat Azerbaijan as an energy resource, regardless of its governance. Successive U.S. administrations also sought to minimize Russia’s influence when opportunities presented themselves, such as with the November 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia or the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” in Armenia.

U.S. inaction against the backdrop of the Second Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) War highlighted the limits of U.S. influence. The ceasefire agreement imposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin sidelined the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group as an institution, as well as France and the United States that, alongside Russia, acted as its co-chairs.

Recent crises ranging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to Azerbaijan’s conquest of Artsakh and Azerbaijan’s military build-up along its borders with Armenia have refocused Washington’s attention on the region. The Biden administration has sought to facilitate a peace process between Baku and Yerevan as Russian influence declines due to Moscow’s inability or unwillingness to enforce the November 9, 2020 agreement.

 The United States believes that the normalization and economic cooperation between regional states will de-escalate tensions and decrease Russian influence in Armenia. Analysts are right to recognize that Armenia has less reason to tie itself to Russia militarily if it no longer faces existential threats from its neighbors. For the first time since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there is an opportunity for a fundamentally new and more proactive American strategy to preserve and develop its interests in the South Caucasus.

Is the U.S. interested in regional stability and peace?

Ask any American diplomat if the U.S. is interested in regional stability and peace, and the answer would be, of course. There is little evidence, however, to suggest any serious commitment. The National Security Council has yet to publish any official strategy on the South Caucasus in the way it has with Africa or the Indo-Pacific region. The 2022 U.S. National Security Strategy mentioned the South Caucasus only once to report the U.S. would back diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Similarly, there were no mentions of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia or the South Caucasus in the 2022 National Defense Strategy. The Director of National Intelligence’s Annual Threat Assessments argued that relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan were likely to remain tense and occasionally volatile in the absence of a peace treaty. Against the backdrop of renewed fighting, the intelligence community’s assessment reflected the continued downplaying and misanalysis of Azerbaijan and its anti-Armenia agenda. Anatol Lieven, director of the Eurasia program at the Quincy Institute, concurred that the United States had no clear and formal strategy for the South Caucasus. *

Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States has sought to contain and isolate Russia. Weakening Russian influence in the South Caucasus would conform to this strategy. Indeed, the United States continued to oppose the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh, in the wake of Azerbaijan’s September 2023 invasion of Artsakh, or anywhere else in the region. While the United States does not call openly for the withdrawal of Russia’s approximately 3,000 troops stationed at a military base in Gyumri, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Yuri Kim stated on September 14, 2023, that Washington had a strategic opportunity to reduce the malign influence in the region from actors like Russia, China and Iran. She argued for a durable peace that would expand U.S. bilateral economic and security cooperation and provide greater energy security for European partners and allies.

The State Department hopes Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other’s territorial integrity. While the United States supports Armenia’s decision to recognize Artsakh as Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory, it also has long called for assuring the rights of Artsakh’s indigenous Armenian community. However, the September 19, 2023, Azerbaijani offensive and the forced displacement of Armenians from Artsakh did not elicit any tangible American response, except for the Armenian Protection Act of 2023, unanimously passed in the U.S. Senate. There were neither sanctions nor symbolic gestures to express U.S. frustration with Azerbaijan. U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Samantha Power and Kim visited Armenia after Artsakh’s collapse but offered humanitarian assistance equivalent to less than $100 per displaced person.

Does fear of Iran shape U.S. policy in the South Caucasus?

From Iran’s perspective, the countries’ shared Shiite faith and close cultural ties reinforce mutual bonds with Azerbaijan. The region became more important to Iran after the Second Artsakh War upset Iran’s decades-long cautious embrace of the status quo in which it could leverage influence over Armenia to preserve its northward trade routes. Additionally, Tehran had leverage over Baku, as it was the only way Azerbaijan could access its Nakhichevan exclave by land without passing through Armenia.

The war’s outcome upended the geopolitical landscape by allowing Turkish military and political penetration of the region. Baku, backed by Ankara, embraced a narrative of establishing an extraterritorial “Zangezur” corridor across southern Armenia from Azerbaijan proper to Nakhichevan, effectively cutting Armenia off from Iran. Aliyev even proposed populating southern Armenia with “Azerbaijani refugees who left Armenia in 1988.” 

While some American officials may believe isolating Iran and increasing Turkish influence in the region might serve U.S. interests in the short-term, Turkey’s tilt toward Russia and China and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to minimize Western influence suggest such a benefit to be illusionary. Nor does such an assessment accurately reflect the Turkish and Azerbaijani contradictions in the region. Azerbaijan’s trade with Iran is equivalent to Armenia’s, and Turkey’s trade with Iran is an order of magnitude higher. Furthermore, the growing economic relations between Moscow and Ankara jeopardize the U.S. interests in the Caspian region.

It is naïve to believe that, should Baku feel no threat from Yerevan, Azerbaijan would focus on countering Iran. Growing energy and trade relations between the two countries suggest that, rhetoric aside, both Aliyev and the Islamic Republic respect each other’s red lines. While Azerbaijan has cooperated with both Israel and the United States with regard to monitoring Iran, Azerbaijan lobbyists often exaggerate its role. Most Israeli operatives infiltrate Iran not through Azerbaijan but rather from Iraqi Kurdistan. Additionally, as Turkey turns on Israel and because Turkey looks at Azerbaijan as a subordinate partner, it is doubtful Erdogan would tolerate continued tight Azerbaijan-Israel ties.  

Does energy shape American strategy?

On September 20, 1994, then-Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev and oil executives from several international companies gathered in Baku for the ceremonial signing of what the Azerbaijani president called the “deal of the century.” A consortium of 11 foreign oil companies signed a contract with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) to develop three major oil fields in the Caspian Sea. As a result, American companies – Amoco, Exxon, Unocal and Pennzoil – collectively took a 40 percent share, followed by BP (formerly British Petroleum) with 17 percent in developing Azerbaijan’s huge Caspian oil. 

To minimize Europe’s energy dependence on Russia, the Americans and the British initiated and financed the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, completed in 2005. The 1,768-kilometer [1,100 mile] pipeline traverses Azerbaijan and Georgia before ending at the port of Ceyhan in Turkey. Today, it can transport 1.2 million barrels per day, and in total it has transported more than 3.6 billion barrels of crude oil from the Caspian to the Mediterranean, bypassing Russia and Iran to decrease Europe’s energy dependence on either. In May 2006, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey launched a further Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline to bring Azerbaijani gas to northern Turkey. Beginning in December 2020, the Trans-Anatolian gas pipeline and Trans Adriatic Pipeline supplemented these to provide up to 10 billion cubic meters of Azeri gas annually to Greece, Italy and other European countries. 

The Ukraine war pushed the Europeans to reduce gas imports from Russia further. On July 18, 2022, the European Commission, backed by the Americans, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Azerbaijan to double imports of Azerbaijani natural gas to at least 20 billion cubic meters a year by 2027. “The EU and Azerbaijan are opening a new chapter in energy cooperation. Azerbaijan is a key partner in the EU’s efforts to move away from Russian fossil fuels,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev stressed that “issues of energy security today are more important than ever.” Azerbaijan started increasing natural gas deliveries to the EU from 8.1 billion cubic meters in 2021 to around 12 billion cubic meters in 2022 via the Southern Gas Corridor. The Azerbaijani option is less than meets the eye, however. To meet Europe’s gas demands, Baku imports gas from Russia.

Does the U.S. support the “Zangezur” corridor?

The OSCE Minsk Group supported reopening trade links between Armenia and Azerbaijan during the two decades it led negotiations to resolve the Artsakh conflict. The subsequent November 2020 trilateral statement also called for the opening of economic and transport links to enable safe passage between Azerbaijan proper and its non-contiguous Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic. Russia’s Federal Security Service was to secure the corridor. The Kremlin would not support any revision that would eliminate its role in the region.

Almost immediately, Azerbaijan sought to redefine the “Zangezur” corridor. Baku argued it was not meant simply to be a transport route but insisted Armenia had agreed to provide an extraterritorial corridor via Syunik, the Armenian province that falls between Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan. Azerbaijan took further steps to include the “Zangezur” corridor into the “Middle Corridor” which envisages the establishment of the new land route between China and Europe via Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, South Caucasus, the Black Sea and Turkey. While the “Middle Corridor” can operate without passing through Armenia, Azerbaijan’s characterization of “Zangezur” distorts reality.  Nor does the establishment of railway and highway connections between Azerbaijan, Nakhichevan and Turkey via Armenia have any direct linkage with the “Middle Corridor.” 

The United States has always supported the idea of restoration of economic ties, including transport communications between Armenia and Azerbaijan, to encourage post-conflict stability and security. In the context of the establishment of railways and highways connecting Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan and Turkey via Armenia, the United States believes that these routes should not be under Russian control. This would require Armenia to change the modalities of Article 9 of the trilateral statement and reject Russian control over any transport communication. Armenia has grounds to reject Russian involvement given Moscow’s failure to uphold its commitments under the trilateral statement. Encouraging Turkey’s trade across Armenia absent Russian involvement could advance U.S. interests by denying space to Russia. Such an outcome, however, would require a fundamental change in Turkey’s attitude toward Armenia. Rather than demand Armenia accept an irredentist Turkey as is, the United States might better achieve its goals if it sought diplomatically to demand Turkey’s acceptance of Armenia’s rights and legitimacy. 

Is Armenia-Turkey normalization possible?

Turkey blockades Armenia in contravention of the 1921 Treaty of Kars and rejects diplomatic relations with Armenia in solidarity with Azerbaijan. The State Department has pushed for Armenia-Turkey normalization since the early 1990s. The idea behind this approach is simple: If Armenia established normal relations with Turkey, it would no longer need to rely on Russia as a guarantor for its sovereignty nor Iran as an economic lifeline. The United States supported the “Football Diplomacy” of 2008-2009 and expressed readiness to contribute to the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations after the end of the 2020 Artsakh war.  

Recommendations 

Azerbaijan mocks the United States as ineffective and a paper tiger, unwanted and unneeded as a diplomatic intermediary. In this, Baku’s rhetoric is similar to Tehran’s and Moscow’s. Washington does have a role, though. Proactive engagement in diplomacy toward Armenia and the broader South Caucasus can have a tremendous impact on outcomes. As such, the United States should undertake the following actions:

• First, the United States must address the immediate crisis. The State Department should increase humanitarian aid to Armenian refugees from Artsakh. 
• Second, the United States immediately and openly should endorse the right of return for Armenian refugees from Artsakh. The State Department must acknowledge these refugees as the indigenous population of Artsakh. 
• Third, the State Department should recognize that the indigenous population of Artsakh maintains its right of self-determination. This was the case legally under the Soviet Constitution – no action or statement by Armenian authorities in Yerevan strips Artsakh Armenians of their fundamental rights.  
• Fourth, Artsakh was a democratic republic with regular one-person, one-vote elections to determine its representatives. In contrast, Azerbaijan is a dictatorship. The exercise of self-determination mandates Artsakh Armenians establish a government-in-exile to represent the interests of Artsakh Armenians in future negotiations.
• Fifth, the United States should reject Azerbaijan’s conception of the “Zangezur” corridor outright. Rationalizing Baku’s position would only legitimize it and encourage Azerbaijan to take even more extreme positions. The United States, like France, should recognize the sanctity of Armenia’s 1991 borders and reject any Azerbaijani attempts to revise or redraw them.
• Sixth, the United States is right to reduce Russian influence, but this requires ending the security threats Armenia faces from its neighbors. There are no shortcuts. The United States must first demand an end to Turkey’s illegal blockade of Armenia and demand that Azerbaijan recognize Armenia’s borders and allow unrestricted Armenian trade. 
• Seventh, the United States should recognize Armenia’s legitimate security needs. Israel’s military exports to Azerbaijan shifted the balance of power and convinced Azerbaijan it could impose through military force what it could never achieve at the negotiating table. Security in the South Caucasus has suffered since. As such, the United States should seek to restore a regional balance of power to stabilize the region. The United States should enhance arms trade and military training with Armenia. The United States should also encourage like-minded countries like France and India to provide arms to Armenia while opposing sales of weaponry to Azerbaijan. 

*Interview was conducted by Benyamin Poghosyan on September 13, 2023.

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About the Authors

Yeghia Tashjian, M.A., is a regional analyst and researcher. He graduated from the American University of Beirut with a public policy and international affairs degree. He pursued his B.A. in political science at Haigazian University in 2013. In 2010, he founded the New Eastern Politics forum/blog. He was a research assistant at the Armenian Diaspora Research Center at Haigazian University. He has participated in international conferences and has presented various topics, from minority rights to regional security issues. His thesis topic was China’s geopolitical and energy security interests in Iran and the Persian Gulf. He is a contributor to various local and regional newspapers and a columnist for the Armenian Weekly. He is the International Affairs Cluster Coordinator at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut and a part-time instructor in International Affairs at the American University of Science and Technology (Beirut Campus). 

Benyamin Poghosyan, Ph.D., is the chairman of the Center for Political and Economic Strategic Studies. He was head of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense Research University in Armenia from August 2016 to February 2019. He joined the Institute for National Strategic Studies in March 2009 as a Research Fellow and was appointed INSS Deputy Director for research in November 2010. During his tenure at the only Armenian state think tank dealing with Armenian foreign policy and regional and international security, Dr. Poghosyan prepared and supervised the elaboration of more than 100 policy papers that were presented to the political-military leadership of Armenia. Since 2009, Dr. Poghosyan has participated in more than 150 international conferences and workshops as a regional and global security dynamics speaker. 

Michael Rubin, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, specializing in Iran, Turkey and the broader Middle East. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen and pre- and post-war Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For over a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture and terrorism to deployed U.S. Navy and Marine units. Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies and Shi’ite politics, including Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East? (AEI Press, 2019); Kurdistan Rising (AEI Press, 2016); Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes (Encounter Books, 2014); and Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave, 2005). Dr. Rubin has a Ph.D. and an MA in history from Yale University and obtained a BS in biology.

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About the Institute

The Aram Manoukian Institute for Strategic Planning has been formed to work with experts in various fields to develop plans for the future of the Armenian nation in Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora. The overarching vision of the Institute is to work towards the creation of a prosperous and just society in Armenia, Artsakh and the Armenian diaspora, where the rights and dignity of all individuals are respected and where peace, democracy and sustainable development are achieved.

The Institute will identify appropriate target audiences, including government officials, civil society organizations, academia, businesses and the public, to ensure its work reaches various stakeholders. It will also build a diverse team with expertise from various fields, including academics, practitioners, individuals from the Armenian diaspora and youth, to provide a holistic perspective in addressing the nation’s challenges. Additionally, it underscores the significance of developing partnerships and collaborations with government agencies, NGOs, research institutions, businesses, international organizations and diaspora organizations to leverage resources and knowledge effectively. The Institute’s agenda will focus on pressing issues such as national security, economic development, education, good governance, health care, diaspora engagement and environmental sustainability. By addressing these challenges through research-based insights and policy recommendations, the Institute will contribute toward the betterment of the Armenian nation.

About the Institute’s Namesake

Aram Manoukian, born in 1879 in Karakilisa, was a prominent Armenian revolutionary who played a pivotal role in the formation of the First Armenian Republic in 1918. His educational journey began in local Armenian schools, followed by studies at the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute in Russia.

While still a student in St. Petersburg, Manoukian became deeply involved in the Armenian national liberation movement. In 1902, he formally joined the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and actively participated in various ARF activities, including armed struggles against oppressive regimes in the Caucasus and the Middle East, notably the Ottoman Empire. He successfully led the self-defense of Van, saving the lives of tens of thousands of Armenian civilians from deportation massacre by the Turkish government.

In 1917, after the Russian Revolution, Manoukian returned to Armenia and assumed a central role in establishing the First Armenian Republic in 1918. He served as the commander-in-chief of Armenian forces during intense battles against Ottoman forces in the Caucasus, ultimately securing Armenia’s independence.

Beyond his military leadership, Manoukian’s contributions extended to politics and economics in the nascent republic. As the prime minister, he championed social justice, equality and progressive policies, focusing on land reform, education and other measures to improve the lives of ordinary Armenians.

Today, Aram Manoukian’s legacy endures, serving as a timeless source of inspiration for Armenians, commemorating his unwavering dedication to his nation and his role as a patriotic statesman.

Author information

Aram Manoukian Institute for Strategic Planning

The Aram Manoukian Institute for Strategic Planning has been formed to work with experts in various fields to develop plans for the future of the Armenian nation in Armenia, Artsakh and the Diaspora. The overarching vision of the Institute is to work towards the creation of a prosperous and just society in Armenia, Artsakh and the Armenian diaspora, where the rights and dignity of all individuals are respected and where peace, democracy and sustainable development are achieved.

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In my previous look into photographs from the ARF archives, I pointed out two things: first, there is a lack of information on many items in the collection – inviting you all to contribute, if you can – and, second, men (and their mustaches) dominate many of the images.

This time, it is worth taking a look into more solemn reminders of Armenian history and culture from the past century and a half or so.

Here is a compelling image. The nine young men tell a story through their eyes. That story is in some ways unfortunately typical and expected, in other ways unusual.

The photograph has writing on the back, listing the names of the subjects: Vartan, Drtad, Hmayag, Noubar, Vosgan, Avedis, Khachig, Nerses and Haroutiun. It says that it is a picture of the orphans who came to Tavriz in Iran from Armenia on July 25, 1932.

The age of the young men is also listed – between 19 and 23 years old. That means they were born around 1909-1913. They are from Amanos, Van, Marash, Smyrna, Konya, Adapazar, Ayntab and Gesaria. The back of the photo also includes the names of the orphanages where they lived in Beirut, Jerusalem and Smyrna.

We can guess their life story – to a point. How and when they ended up in Armenia (is Soviet Armenia meant?) and how and why they managed to make their way to Iran is not clear. But the disruption they faced in their very young lives and their further exile and movement across the Middle East form an all-too-familiar pattern for Armenian life in the early 20th century.

This next image is labeled “Սուէտայի հարիւրամեայ ծերունիներ” in Armenian on the back – centenarians from Sweida or Suedia, the region in what is now northwestern Syria. It says in addition “Port Said, 1915.” That’s where the survivors from Musa Dagh – in Sweida – ended up. Are these men who had lived a hundred years already, only to survive a genocide?

Search for “refugees” on arfarchives.org/photograph and you will find some heartbreaking images, such as this one of little girls hauling water.

It does not contain additional details of where and when exactly the photograph was taken.

Another image shows genocide survivors in the north of Iraq.

Yet another takes us all the way to Italy.

You can also search by location on the photographs section of the ARF archives website. Click on “Baku.” The many layers of conflict there find their reflection in a few photographs, such as the one of a burnt-out house from 1905 below, and then another of refugees in 1918.

Finally, I’d like to share another, less usual depiction.

These are individuals who taught at an Armenian school in Ordu, in what is the north of Turkey today, on the Black Sea. The seven subjects of the photograph are named. Three are marked “սպանւած” – killed. One has “Paris” in parentheses next to his name, one “New York.” One has no additional details, and the final person has an interesting life story all to himself as a spy for Armenia.

The back of the photo does not say when it was taken, nor when the labels were written. It reflects something that we all know in principle. Our ancestors lived their lives. They had their homes, fields, churches and schools. There were principals and teachers, kids complaining about their grades, graduates receiving diplomas, adolescents who had crushes on one another… 

We often remember the tragic end to much of Ottoman Armenian life through images of hardship, suffering, marches through deserts – all of which happened. Alongside that pain, however, we also bear other legacies from the Ottoman Empire, such as our schools. Armenians have survived and thrived, and generations of Armenian teachers have guided the hands of generations of students from Ordu and Van to Ontario and Van Nuys. Beyond what most often comes to mind, photos such as this one can serve as a powerful visual reminder of the many paths Armenian communities have taken over the last hundred years and more.

Author information

Nareg Seferian

Nareg Seferian has lived, studied and worked in New Delhi, Yerevan, Santa Fe, Boston, Vienna, Istanbul and Washington, DC. His writings can be read at naregseferian.com.

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Armenians gathered on February 13 outside Saint Anna Church in Yerevan and Holy Mother of God Church in Garni to celebrate “Trndez,” a festival with ancient roots tied to Zoroastrian traditions venerating the sun and fire. 

This occasion marks the onset of spring and fertility, carrying a tapestry of folk beliefs. For newlyweds, it holds particular significance as they leap over flames, believing that if touched, they will soon be blessed with children. It has been observed that the weather traditionally begins to warm after this day.

Trndez’s history is rich, tracing back to Zoroastrian and Pagan origins, predating Armenia’s conversion to Christianity in 301 A.D. Originally named “Derendez,” it was later christened “Dyarnuntarach,” meaning “bringing forward of the Lord.” The term “Trndez” itself carries the essence of “the Lord is with you.”

Commemorations typically include church services followed by the lighting of bonfires, symbolizing divine light and warmth and the advent of spring and fertility. Participants encircle these fires, jumping over them as a ritual. “Dyarnuntarach” is intricately linked with the purification feast of the Armenian Apostolic and Catholic Churches, celebrated 40 days after the nativity. It commemorates the presentation of the Lord to the Temple by Mary and Joseph and the confirmation of Jesus’ revelation as God.

Author information

Anthony Pizzoferrato

Anthony Pizzoferrato is an Italian American freelance photojournalist, documentarian and filmmaker based in Yerevan, Armenia. His work places emphasis on reporting and documenting conflicts, political events, complex social issues, human rights and cultural history within post-Soviet states and the Middle East while creating understanding, intimacy and empathy. His work on the war in Ukraine and protests in Yerevan has been published in Getty Reportage.

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