VILLAGE OF QARINTAK IN SHUSHI GORGE

Azg/arm
9 Feb 05

Seryozha Aghabian, 58, stood beside the marble plaque explaining: “This
one is my 18-year-old son Artur. Artur was killed in Martakert. The
other one is Garnik, my brotherâ~@~Ys son who was killed at 20. Those
two others are my uncleâ~@~Ys sons; one of them is with his wife
here. They also were killed”.

There are two marble plaques in Qarintak: one bearing the names of
99 soldiers killed during the WW II and the other with the names of
33 killed in Karabakh war. There were 22 more villagers who died in
the war as residents of other Karabakh regions. Seryozha does not
consider himself the unhappiest person in the village though he lost
5 relatives in the war.

Russian Tatiana Arushanian lost her husband and son in the war. Seda
Margarian and Arusyak Abaghian lost their 2 sons. Siran Hovhannisian
lost her 2 sons and two grandchildren.

Grisha Hovhannisian, the other son of Mrs. Siran, has been the head
of Qarintakâ~@~Ys village administration since 1985 now. Laughing at
his own words he calls himself a communist. “The village has now 654
inhabitants. 33 people died in the war and the others left for Shushi
as their homes were in ruins” he says.

“Qarintak is our Avarayr, our Sardarapat. The Turks decided to conquer
the village in 2 hours. It was in our village that they were first
seriously beaten. Turkish fang broke here first”, Grisha says.

Qarintak is hid in the Shushi gorge. The village endured enemyâ~@~Ys
fire for 2 and half a year till Shushi was liberated. The Azeris
call the village Dashalta or Qanl?dara, meaning â~@~Xgorge of
bloodâ~@~Y. Defeat of Azeri forces at Qarintak made the former Azeri
defense minister, Tajet Mehtiev, resign the office.

In his â~@~XThe Black Gardenâ~@~Y British journalist Tom de Waal
dedicated a separate chapter to Qarintak and Shushi. Though Tajet
Mehtiev has served at the Soviet Supreme Headquarters for decades,
de Waal wrote, that experience was not enough to wage a war in
Caucasus. De Waal writes that the village was rocketed from Shushi
by Mehtievâ~@~Ys order.

Azeris made 3 attempts to take the village over. Five villages of
Shushi region were depopulate by January 26 of 1992 when 2 Azeri
battalions crushed at Qarintak. There even was a decision to hand
the village over without fight but the villagers firmly stood for
their land.

“We had 40 guns, few dozens of hunting and handmade rifles against
2 Azeri battalions and the camp-followers that were to sack the
village. The battle lasted more than half a day. Death toll of January
26 counted 22 people, 12 of whom were our villagers, the other ten
were from neighboring villages. Azerisâ~@~Y toll was 136 dead and
tens of wounded; they left a heavy armoured vehicle in the village. We
could not bury the dead here as the Azeris kept rocketing the village
ceaselessly. We buried them in Stepanakert and they were reburied in
the village in 1993”, Grisha tells.

“My two brothers were killed. We buried Alyosha on the night of
December 28, 1991, as it was impossible to walk in midday, as the
fire did not stop. Misha, my second brother was killed on January 26”,
he says.

Azeri mothers commemorate their sons â~@~S students of various
institutes â~@~S who were sent to conquer Nagorno Karabakh by Baku
authorities.

Zoya Tsatrian, 61, whose 25-year-old son Garnik was killed on his
was back from the battle, feels pain for Azeri young people too who
perished in Qarintak and neighboring fields. “I pity them as they
were young”, she says.

Each story in Qarintak is war-related. The head of village
administration is content with the villagers and says that they all
are diligent and do not fear difficulties. Qarintak has gasification,
telecommunication, a secondary school with 87 pupils, 2 libraries
and a cultural center.

By Tatoul Hakobian in Qarintak

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