KARABAKH: A TALE OF TWO CITIES
By Ashot Beglarian in Shushi
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
June 7 2007
On the eve of crucial peace talks over Nagorny Karabakh, Armenian
refugees from Baku say it is too early to allow Azerbaijanis to
come back.
Sarasar Saryan, a middle-aged Armenian man with large, expressive
and slightly sad eyes, looks back wistfully on Baku, the great city
on the Caspian Sea which he grew up in – and then lost.
"Yes, we lived in Baku, we studied there, fell in love, devoted our
ideas and plans and if I can put it like that, our large and small
triumphs to the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic," says Saryan. "We were
possessed by the idea of socialism and we pushed for its advancement
as much as we could."
Saryan now lives in the hills of Nagorny Karabakh, in the town of
Shushi- which the Azerbaijanis call Shusha – large parts of which
are still in ruins from the war of 1991-94.
Shushi is a legendary town in Caucasus, sitting on a plateau at the top
of a steep cliff. You can look out and see the surrounding landscape
as if it were in the palm of your hand. The city is famous for its
culture and architecture and also for its tragic history. It has been
burned three times in the 20th century – in 1905, 1918 and 1992.
The town has been called the "Jerusalem of Karabakh" because both
sides in the conflict claim it.
On June 9, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Robert Kocharian
and Ilham Aliev, meet in St Petersburg for talks on the Karabakh
conflict, unresolved since the end of hostilities in 1994 left the
Armenians in control of Nagorny Karabakh itself and large swathes of
Azerbaijani territory around it.
Some mediators are already talking up the possibility of a breakthrough
declaration by the two leaders.
"It is a very favourable moment now for settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan
Nagorny Karabakh conflict, and the parties have never been so close
to agreement," the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Spanish foreign minister
Miguel Angel Moratinos said earlier this week.
However, the two groups of people with most to gain or lose from a
peace deal – the Armenian inhabitants of Karabakh itself, many of whom
are refugees from Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijani refugees who fled from
Karabakh as a result of the conflict – remain sceptical and fearful
of what a solution would mean for them.
Saryan heads the Public Organisation of Refugees of Nagorny Karabakh,
which represents Armenians who like him originally come from Baku
and other parts of Azerbaijan.
He says his group is involved in peace-building activities with
the Azerbaijanis. But it is also demanding compensation from that
country’s government for losses suffered by refugees.
He argues that it is unfair that when the Karabakh dispute is
discussed, much of the emphasis is on the Azerbaijanis who were
displaced and lost their homes, Yet hundreds of thousands of Armenians
in Azerbaijan were also forced to flee.
Like many former residents of Baku, Saryan looks back fondly on the
"international" city of his youth, where many different ethnic groups
lived alongside one another.
That idyll began to change even in Soviet times, he said, when
Azerbaijani nationalism was on the rise. "Lots of young Baku Armenians
did not return to the city after serving in the Soviet army; they
tried to settle elsewhere instead," he said.
Now Baku’s Armenians are scattered all over the world, with many in
Shushi. Saryan noted that Shushi is also home to Armenians who lost
their homes in Mardakert and Hadrut, areas close to Karabakh.
"According to my lists, there are 174 refugee families from Azerbaijan
living in Shushi, a total of 483 people," said Saryan.
He lives in an old stone house on the edge of the town which he has
been restoring to liveability in recent years, but without changing its
old facade. He even corresponds with the house’s former owner in Baku.
Because Nagorny Karabakh is an unrecognised republic, refugees living
there do not enjoy the same rights as those in Azerbaijan, he said,
adding, "The main problem for [Armenian] refugees from Azerbaijan
can be described as their lack of international status."
The refugees have problems finding work and adapting to the
Armenian-speaking environment – many grew up speaking Russian.
"The problem of education is very acute for refugees," said Mikhail
Sarkisian, who comes from Baku where he and his wife spoke only
Russian, not Armenian. "There are no Russian schools here. We had to
send our children to an Armenian school when they were already quite
grown up, even though neither they nor we parents had a grounding in
the language.
"As a result the children are finishing school with a handicap –
they don’t have either proper Armenian or Russian, and they have
no prospect of going on to higher education. I have five children,
and soon they will have to work and feed their own families."
Areg Hovannisian, who is 82 and a veteran of the Second World War,
sighs that lack of work is the main problem for the younger generation.
"I left my home and everything I’d earned there, and came here in
the clothes I stood up in," said Hovannisian who fled the city of
Sumgait in 1988 after pogroms against the Armenians there.
"My son volunteered for the [Karabakh] war, he was wounded twice and
now he has gone to live in Russia. I have to say I am not optimistic
about the future. There is no work and no assistance. We have to
create decent living conditions, otherwise young people won’t stay
here. Why did my son go to Russia? If there had been work here,
he wouldn’t have gone."
Stella Babakhanian is more optimistic about the future of the town.
She came to Shushi from Baku with her four-year-old son after her
husband died.
Before the conflict, she said, she never imagined that relations
between Armenians and Azerbaijanis could descend into war.
"I don’t like the word ‘refugee’," she said. "I’ve never thought of
myself as a refugee. Right from the start, I was against accepting any
kind of assistance, and I consider it demeaning to expect to get aid
from somewhere. If people manage to work and don’t depend on others
then they won’t leave."
A 2004 law on refugees passed in Nagorny Karabakh allocated small
sums of money to compensate to those who had fled from Azerbaijan,
but not to "internal refugees" forced to move Karabakh – a distinction
which has caused some tensions.
The Karabakh government is building houses for refugees in Stepanakert
and other places. Last year, 22 homes were built and this year there
will be 23 more.
One major demand Azerbaijani officials are making in the negotiations
is that Azerbaijani refugees should be allowed to return.
But Karabakh Armenians take the view that this issue cannot be
separated from that of the general security of Karabakh. Most believe
that if the Azerbaijanis came back, the situation would deteriorate.
Zhanna Krikorova, who is chief secretary at Karabakh’s foreign
ministry, said, "Azerbaijan’s politicisation of the refugee issue
unbalances it. The Azerbaijani side is trying to use the return of
refugees as an instrument for expansion into Nagorny Karabakh."
According to Saryan, "It is a complex, one might say global issue,
which gives rise to strong emotional reactions here. For reasons of
pure logic, it cannot be on the agenda."
He explained, "First, lots of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan have
found shelter within Nagorny Karabakh. Secondly, the societies in
Nagorny Karabakh and Azerbaijan have only recently gone through a true
modern war, and it is impossible to talk about returning refugees as
long as the issue of Karabakh’s status has not been resolved de jure."
"Only after the status issue is resolved… will it be possible to
prepare these societies to make mutual compromises on the refugee
return issue. It is a process for the future."
Ashot Beglarian is a freelance journalist and IWPR contributor in
Nagorny Karabakh. He is part of IWPR’s Cross Caucasus Journalism
Network project, funded by the European Union and other donors.
Editor’s note: the terminology used in this article to describe the
Nagorny Karabakh conflict was chosen by IWPR and not by the author.