The Armenian News Network — Groong has just published one of a few interviews conducted on my recent visit to Lachin, administrative center of the new Kashatagh region sandwiched between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. The first is with Gagik Kosakian, Deputy Governor of the Kashtagh region.

Recent reports in the Armenian press suggest that the population of the between Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh is decreasing. On 22 August 2006, Onnik Krikorian visited Lachin, now renamed Berdzor, to update his ongoing project on the Kashatagh region and to check the veracity of such reports.

The full interview is available here.

Oshagan, Aragatsotn Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1999

It seems like everybody loves villages in Armenia, and who can blame them? Indeed, when Yerevan gets too much most of the city’s population takes time out by relaxing in them if not holidaying in Sevan or Batumi and Kobuleti. Even so, I don’t get nearly enough opportunity to visit them anymore despite their being the main reason why I moved to Armenia in 1998.

(more…)

Via The Armenian Odar, news of “an online global exhibit featuring art, photographs, essays and film by young women in their 20s and 30s…” Myrthe points out that only one Armenian woman based in Moscow is participating so far, so head over to her blog for more details. I know a friend of Nessuna’s might submit some art, but there’s room for more contributions.

Nor Kharberd, Ararat Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2000

Eight years ago, before coming to Armenia to live, I had been vegetarian for 15 years, including 5 years as a vegan, in the U.K. Of course, Armenians don’t like anyone different and it took 3 months and a vodka-soaked New Year to abandon all that time and start eating meat. Now, after an argument with a friend going hunting this weekend, I’ve decided to go back to being vegetarian.

To be honest, I hate the way Armenia has changed my life in some areas, and concerns about the quality of meat sold in this country — especially in the area of quality control and expiry dates — makes me think that it’s time to rectify the damage. Besides, while I do admit that human beings are basically animals, we are also omnivores and have the ability to choose.

Personally, I don’t need something else to die for me to live my life. Anyway, given the level of corruption and lack of quality control, it makes sense from a safety point of view. Armenia Now had something on this in 2002.

On October 10 workers of Yerevan Veterinary Service Center detected beef infected with anthrax in a store on Khorenatsi street.

[…]

According to official data last year, during heightened awareness stirred by news from abroad, there were 18 cases of anthrax infection - none fatal, and all causing skin rash, the mildest of three forms of the poison. This year three residents of Dzunashogh and Metsavan villages of Tashir region have been infected using meat of one animal.

[…]

“During Soviet times 95 percent of animals were slaughtered in slaughter houses,” he says. “There were six slaughter houses in Armenia. Now approximately 95 percent of animals are slaughtered in the yards without any control. Sometimes when a villager sees that an animal is dying he slaughters it and brings for sale and the regional vet doesn’t know. For 10 years I’ve been offering to create special slaughter houses, like it is common in civilized countries, where specialists will be working and there won’t be any need for our center’s functioning. However, nobody is interested in it.”

(more…)

Melikashen, Kashatagh Region, Armenian-controlled Republic of Azerbaijan © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2001

Before I get round to writing up the material from last week’s visit to Lachin, some more pics from 2001 of villages that I was forbidden to return to this year. Would have been interesting to see how life was in these villages now, but perhaps that’s precisely why I wasn’t allowed to go there. For sure, Herik is now dead.

In Melikashen, a little village not far from Lachin, one family invites us in for coffee. Amid the dirt and dilapidation of their new home, “repossessed” from its former owners, the new arrivals explain that the Armenian diaspora must invest in these new communities while Irkoyan is more interested in validating Armenian claims to this land by taking me to see an old Armenian castle. An Azeri house has been built into its side.

Behind the remains of an Armenian stone cross now broken in two, pigs are being herded into an outhouse while an old woman skins the head of a slaughtered sheep on the balcony above. Her husband invites us in, insisting, as duty demands, that we have some tan, a drink similar to yogurt, before we leave. A passing car throws up a cloud of dust, momentarily obscuring the view.

The next stop on a road that takes us past the remains of Azeri villages, towns, cemeteries, and the occasional Armenian monastery perched high overhead is Moshatagh. The village head, another new arrival from Jermuk, once a popular tourist destination in Armenia, sits with his family of eight on the veranda of their new home. His four-wheel drive is needed to make the journey to Herik, high in the surrounding hills, but even then, the twisting, narrow road will be difficult.

(more…)

Although I’m taking a leaf out of Garo (AKA Christian Garbis) at Notes from Hairenik’s book by using the term “vochinch“, it’s still amazing for me to consider just how apathetic and passive society in Armenia is. Of course, some say that getting involved in the process of nation building wouldn’t change anything, but let’s face it. They don’t even try.

I have taken surveys amongst various youth during the last three years or so and an overwhelming majority feels that there is little to no way to change the system in which they live, and no job opportunities exist for them. Yet some of them make no strides in finding ways in which to overturn their misfortune or seek opportunities that are not obvious to them.

(more…)

Herik, Kashatagh Region, Armenian-controlled Republic of Azerbaijan © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2001

As I’ve already posted, my visit to Lachin last week was frustrated by the local KGB and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nagorno Karabakh who refused to give me written permission to go anywhere but Stepanakert. According to the NKR MFA, even Diasporans on a 10 year Special Residency Passports must register and seek approval to travel in the Republic.

Certainly, according to them, they are not allowed to travel anywhere outside of the Republic. Kind of bizarre that given that you have to travel through Lachin in order to get to Stepanakert in the first place, but as people in NK and Lachin told me, they made that up on the spot. Simply, they didn’t want anyone — and especially journalists — travelling to villages around Lachin which are now emptying.

While I was in the area I even approached a Diasporan organization working in South Kashatagh requesting access to photograph their projects. They agreed, but the MFA in Stepanakert refused to grant me permission to even visit a village 2km outside Lachin. This had never happened to the organization or Diasporan visitors before so it’s beyond question that the problem was me as well as recent news reports.

A pity in a way because it would have been interesting to visit villages that I’ve been to in the past, or maybe not. All seem to be in a sorry state and some are now dead. One of those long since gone is Herik, formerly the Azeri village of Ahmadlu. According to the Acting Governor of Kashatagh, the village died because even five years after I visited, there was no electricity.

The next stop on a road that takes us past the remains of Azeri villages, towns, cemeteries, and the occasional Armenian monastery perched high overhead is Moshatagh. The village head, another new arrival from Jermuk, once a popular tourist destination in Armenia, sits with his family of eight on the veranda of their new home. His four-wheel drive is needed to make the journey to Herik, high in the surrounding hills, but even then, the twisting, narrow road will be difficult.

Upon our arrival, children in threadbare clothing clamor to have their photographs taken outside the 16th-century church that the Azeris once used as a cattle shed. Conditions must have been significantly worse in Armenia for families to consider relocating to Herik. There are no telephones, and water has to be collected from a hosepipe that serves as the irrigation system for the entire village. Irkoyan says that 50 percent of the villages now being resettled have no electricity.

And for some, the conditions are too hard. Another family invites us in. Their living conditions are the worst I have seen anywhere. They have decided enough is enough and have since moved their seven children to Lachin as the winter set in. Another family from the 13 who originally came here has also left.

(more…)

Ditsmayri, Kashatagh Region, Armenian-controlled Republic of Azerbaijan © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2000

Because I was confined to Lachin on the instructions of the local KGB and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh who would not give me written authorization to be anywhere other than Stepanakert, I’ve had to dig into my archive of photos from new settlements in the Kashatagh region. Interestingly, like Ditsmayri close to Zangelan, most of those villages are now deserted.

Actually, many of those inhabiting these villages faced significant problems when I visited 2000-2003, but since 2004 the rate of migration has apparently escalated. Not only has the provision of free electricity up to 200 kw/month been stopped, but while official figures put the population of Kashatagh at 9,800, local officials privately put the number at 5-6,000.

I was also told that Ditsmayri is now empty. Interestingly, Armenia Now published an article in 2004 on the first signs that areas outside of Lachin were being forgotten by the local authorities. Moreover, the article suggests that this reality started to occur before the present Governor of the region was appointed to his position.

There is no epidemic in Kovkasan city or its suburbs but all residents say they are going to leave. The most frequently heard reason is “we were deceived” and if they keep their word it will soon be hard to find any residents here.

Conquered by Armenian military forces in 1993, Kovsakan is the former Azerbaijani city of Zangelan , bordering the southern regions of Armenia next to the Arax River . A year later it became the southern center of Nagorno Karabakh’s Kashatagh region and a government resettlement program started.

“When people used to leave before, it went unnoticed because others were coming to settle. Now nobody comes here, people only leave,” says Khachik Adamyan, the Mayor of Kovsakan.

[…]

Migrants were initially attracted to the area by promises of privileges and development prospects. Today, those privileges have decreased and the area declines rather than develops. In six years, only one hospital (with money provided by benefactors) and one school have been built.

[…]

“If they don’t want to populate the territories why don’t they tell us so that we could leave,” says Mamikon Yavrumnyan, a 30-year-old teacher at Kovsakan school who arrived four years ago from Yerevan. He has married and become a father here.

(more…)

Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

(more…)

Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

While in Lachin I made a return visit to the AGAPE Children’s Home to speak to its Director Samuel Kocharian. The institution which is generally referred to as a Boarding School by locals was established in 1995 and accomodates 27 children deprived of appropiate parental care in the region. Most of the children are from villages surrounding Lachin, but there are also 8 from Karabakh proper.

(more…)

Lachin, Kashatagh Region, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2006

One of the nicest things about my otherwise ill-fated return to Lachin was seeing kids I had photographed years earlier. In particular, it was nice to stay with the family of Gohar, pictured below.

(more…)