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.

Anyway, as I’ve also said before, the Acting Governor of Kashatagh gave the figure of around 9,800 for the number of people living in Kashatagh with about 2,200 living in Lachin (Berdzor) proper. However, other officials privately put the figure at about 5-6,000. Interestingly, they all spoke well of the Acting Governor, Deputy Governor Gagik Kosakian. He had to quote official figures, they said.

I’d also like to point out that Kosakian and the Head of the Department of Resettlement in Kashatagh were more than happy to allow me to vist villages away from Lachin. However, the National Security Service (NSS — formerly the KGB) as well as the authorities in Stepanakert were not. Recent articles in the Armenian media have obviously worried them, and access now appears to be cut off for journalists and foreigners.

Anyway, Herik is definitely dead according to the Acting Governor and Head of Resttlement although others also told me that the Village Head’s arrest and imprisonment for killing two people breaking into his house also had something to do with it. Regardless, the general consensus of opinion in Kashatagh is that the decision to revoke the provision of free electricity to settlers has had an effect on those fortunate to have power.

Otherwise, a lack of transparency in the budget for Kashatagh — 2.2 billion drams according to two sources — is raising additional concerns. Nobody even in authority can categorically state where it’s being spent. Others point out that of 750 million drams that was meant to be spent on construction, only 50 million has actually been spent. Even so, migration away from the villages was happening when I visited in 2001.

The main issue is that this migration away from villages in Kashatagh now appears to be accelerating. Opinion is still divided as to why. Is it because the budget for the region still can’t cover what is needed with the lack of concern from the new Governor — who was on holiday in Jermuk when I went last week — exacerbating the problem, is it official policy, or a combination of both?

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