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Nagorno-Karabakh: The Land That Doesn't Exist

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  • Nagorno-Karabakh: The Land That Doesn't Exist

    NAGORNO-KARABAKH: THE LAND THAT DOESN'T EXIST

    Ethnically Armenian, annexed to Azerbaijan, unrecognised by almost
    everyone: Nagorno-Karabakh could be the world's least-known wonder

    Mark Stratton | Issue 150 | September 2014

    "This is the miracle of Gandzasar," said Galust, pointing to a
    missile embedded in the 13th-century mountaintop monastery where
    locals say John the Baptist's head is buried. "It hit," said Galust,
    "but never exploded."

    It was difficult reconciling the loveliness of this medieval
    treasure's valley location and exquisite 16-sided tambour, with the
    bulletholes peppering its facade. Yet given the breakaway republic
    of Nagorno-Karabakh's recent history, following 70 years of Soviet
    atheism, the real miracle of Gandzasar is that it remains standing
    at all.

    Nagorno nowhere

    Nagorno-Karabakh, which perches like a jagged crown above northern
    Iran, remerged after the USSR went supernova in the early 1990s and
    sent breakaway Caucasus republics spiralling out of control like
    rudderless sputniks. Chechnya, South Ossetia and Abkhazia remain
    volatile. But a ceasefire between Karabakh separatists, their
    Armenian allies and Azerbaijan, which fought for six years over
    Nagorno-Karabakh, has held since 1994, allowing travellers to visit
    what has become a de facto (although internationally unrecognised)
    eastern extension of Armenia.

    Stalin sowed the seeds of conflict in the region in 1921, pursuing
    a policy of divide-and-rule to combat ethnic opposition within the
    fledgling USSR. He severed predominately Christian Nagorno-Karabakh
    from Armenia, and spliced it to the mainly Muslim Azerbaijan Soviet
    Socialist Republic. The enclave sank into anonymity until Stalin's
    Machiavellian legacy came back to haunt the USSR's disintegration,
    when simmering ethnic tensions resurfaced.

    Cradle of Christendom

    It was from Armenia's sun-drenched capital, Yerevan, that I made the
    330km drive east into Nagorno-Karabakh: the only access corridor. With
    me was Armenian guide, Galust Hovsepyan, whose world-weary countenance
    belied his encyclopaedic brilliance for history and art.

    In Yerevan we visited several poignant reminders of the 1988-94
    Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, such as the Mother Armenia Military Museum
    and Yerablur Cemetery, where 7,000 Armenians are buried from a conflict
    that cost 30,000 lives.

    >From Yerevan it was a magnificent day's drive through the cradle
    of Christendom to reach Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh's capital. En
    route, along Armenia's Turkish border, roadside vendors sold sweet
    watermelons, peaches, dried apricots and demijohns of areni wine.

    Behind, snow-capped Mt Ararat rose 5,137m to a summit that allegedly
    received Noah's ark.

    Mt Ararat was also annexed in 1921 to pacify Turkey but remains highly
    auspicious to Armenians. On its foothills, at Khor Virap Monastery,
    I clambered into a coal-black zindan (pit dungeon) where St Gregory
    the Illuminator spent 13 miserable years imprisoned before emerging
    to convert Armenia to Christianity in AD 301 - making it the world's
    first Christian nation.

    Beyond Ararat the road soared above 2,000m onto Syunik's rolling
    golden prairie. It then entered the contentious Lachin Corridor, the
    umbilical cord connecting Armenia and 4,400 sq km Nagorno-Karabakh
    through now occupied Azerbaijan territory.

    As we crossed over the River Ahavno, a border sign proclaimed 'Welcome
    to the Mountainous Republic of Karabakh'. However, the locals here
    tend to call it Artsakh - nagorno ('mountain' in Russian) and karabakh
    ('black garden' in Turkic) echo years of historic foreign domination.

    A matter of life or death

    There's no obvious wartime hangover in modern Stepanakert, a vibrantly
    breezy little capital that's been industriously reborn. A youthful
    population frequents airy boulevards of boutiques and cafes in a city
    putting down roots. Living in a ceasefire zone seemed forgotten every
    evening around the Armenia Hotel; on the former Soviet parade ground
    of Renaissance Square, goose-stepping soldiers have been superseded by
    promenading crowds. At 7pm I joined the nightly migration to Stepan
    Shahumyan Park, where a funky fountain spewed in sync to musical
    eclecticism - from Shostakovich to Shakira.

    Stepanakert Museum holds evidence of centuries of Roman, Persian and
    Turkic conquest. But raven-haired museum guide, Gayaneh, was keen to
    reaffirm the territory's Christian heritage, showing me khachkars,
    medieval memorial stones finely decorated by geometric patterning
    reminiscent of Celtic crosses.

    When the war started, Gayaneh - then aged two - was evacuated to
    Yerevan. "My father was a mathematician and stayed to fight as a tank
    driver," she said. This petite young woman told me she too would
    fight for Artsakh. It reminded me of something I'd read by Russian
    dissident Andrei Sakharov: 'For Azerbaijan the issue of Karabakh is
    a matter of ambition; for the Armenians of Karabakh, it is a matter
    of life or death.'

    "No country in the world recognises them," Galust explained to us.

    "But the Karabakh people are very stubborn and will never leave
    these lands."

    "We Are Our Mountains" monument (Shutterstock)

    Cultural corners

    Over the next few days we sought out far-flung expressions of
    Armenian culture in the form of secreted monasteries, fortresses
    and ancient cities. First we visited the former capital Shushi, 10km
    from Stepanakert. This mountaintop fortress tops the awe-inspiring
    Karkar River canyon, the cliffs of which concertina into synclines as
    if squeezed through a cook's icing bag. Shushi's war-damaged streets
    showed glimpses of what once was an elegant multi-faith cosmopolitan
    city: there were Persian inscriptions, Moorish Arabian arches and
    the tiled minarets of 19th-century mosques. Shushi's resident Muslim
    Azeri worshipped here until recently, fleeing only in 1992 after
    being overrun by Karabakh fighters in a ferocious battle that turned
    the war in the latter's favour.

    Shushi's restored 19th-century Ghazanchetsots Cathedral highlights
    an interesting dichotomy. Nagorno-Karabakh's reviving self-identity
    centres on its Christian heritage yet during Soviet times practising
    religion was forbidden so worship dwindled and churches fell into
    disrepair.

    After visiting Gandzasar's hilltop medieval church, we took another
    sublime drive to Dadivank Monastery. West of 3,340m Mrav Mountain,
    we skirted south of Azerbaijan's border into the Tartar Valley's
    fertile mosaic of fruit orchards and walnut groves. Here, the sparsely
    populated villages contained abandoned Russian T-72 tanks and defunct
    Soviet kolkhoz (collective farms). Indicative of the ever-present
    Karabakh hospitality, an old man halted his donkey to press hazelnuts
    into my hand with a toothless grin.

    Galust hadn't made this journey often so stopped to ask three old men
    seated roadside how far Dadivank was. "Fifteen kilometres," said one.

    "Seventeen," growled another. "It's 20km!" the third exploded. "You've
    both always talked rubbish." When we returned two hours later, the
    trio hadn't budged.

    Dadivank is completely unsigned and invisible from the road. Accessed
    by a steep track onto a mountain terrace, the terracottacoloured
    tenth-century building possesses the austere orthodoxy of mountainous
    monasteries I'd seen in Greece and the Holy Land. "It was abandoned
    and decayed during Soviet Azerbaijan rule. Not one rouble was spent
    maintaining it," complained Galust.

    But the monastery touches the very nerve-ends of Christianity. Dadi,
    a pupil of St Thaddeus (Jude the Apostle), is said to have travelled
    to Armenia two millennia ago, spreading the gospel. The church was
    originally built in the fourth century but rebuilt in medieval times.

    Its antiquated decor comprises sumptuous bas-reliefs featuring Jude and
    archaic Armenian script including a testament of Queen Arzou-Khatoun
    bemoaning her sons' martyrdom to Turkish invaders.

    Unknown world wonder?

    My adventures in the South Caucasus ended around eastern
    Nagorno-Karabakh's militarily imposed buffer zone within seized
    Azerbaijan territory. It's accessed via Askeran, where the turreted
    wall of Mayraberd Fortress infills a valley like a row of yellowing
    dentures. It was constructed by 16th-century Persian occupiers to
    block access into Nagorno-Karabakh from the Caspian plains eastwards.

    The monastery of Dadivank, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (Shutterstock)

    As I scrambled among the overgrown ruins, 75-year-old Zhora wandered
    out from his garden of pomegranates and black grapes. "We used to
    share Askeran with Azeris. We helped each other," he said. "But it
    became dangerous here in 1988 when there was violence. I was born
    here and will never leave because my son was killed and buried here."

    Galust struggled to interpret Zhora's dialect, which was flecked
    with Russian and Farsi diction. But he understood his sentiments,
    strident enough to suggest rapprochement with his former Azeri
    neighbours remained distant.

    Beyond Askeran, the mountains melted into the Caspian plain stretching
    deep into sovereign Azerbaijan. Galust tuned in to an Azerbaijani
    radio station while we gazed over Agdam, an Azeri ghost town, once
    home to 80,000 people before being destroyed by Armenian forces.

    Abandoned minarets poked above the rubble of shelled buildings.

    The object of our journey was Tigranakert, a 2,000-year-old city that
    may one day be celebrated as an ancient wonder of the world. For
    now though, a small museum hosts just a fraction of the treasures
    trickling from recent archaeological excavations. These reflect the
    power of Armenian king, Tigram the Great, whose once formidable empire
    (95-55BC) stretched from the Mediterranean to the Caspian. Marc Anthony
    and then seventh-century Arab invaders later occupied Tigranakert
    before its descent into obscurity.

    "Tigranakert is unknown because there was a Soviet prison here so
    it couldn't be excavated until after the war," explained Varham,
    an onsite archaeologist. Most of the artefacts, coins, weapons and
    tools are being catalogued in Yerevan. "The richness of these finds
    and this architecture demonstrates that several thousand years ago
    this was a major trading city between China and Arabia," he added.

    I hiked up to Tigranakert's mountainside citadel and rested on
    the remains of its first-century foundations as blistering hot
    winds rasped the dry grass. I was totally alone bar scurrying sand
    lizards and looping vultures. Such a vast empire, I reflected,
    so completely forgotten. Then distant artillery fire from Armenian
    military manoeuvres jolted me back from my heat-hazed daze into the
    modern realpolitik of Nagorno-Karabakh.

    "This status quo won't change for some time but maybe in 20 years,
    when the sentiments of war have died down, there can be an agreement,"
    hoped Galust.

    Nagorno-Karabakh remains controversial. And I was aware that, on my
    travels, I hadn't heard the Azerbaijani side of the argument. But
    for now, this obscure breakaway republic, so rich in hospitality and
    history, provides an absorbing offbeat break away.

    The author travelled with Regent Holidays. Includes UK flights,
    time in Yerevan, transportation to and around Nagorno-Karabakh,
    most meals and a guide.

    http://www.wanderlust.co.uk/magazine/articles/destinations/nagorno-karabakh-the-land-that-doesnt-exist?page=all

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