ԴԱՇՏԻՑ ԴՈՒՐՍ / OFFSTAGE (ընթացիկ / in progress)

Հայերեն սղագրությունը շուտով հասանելի կլինի։

Recorded in August, 2023

I was living in Stepanakert, [capital of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)]. I lived apart from my family, they were from Hovtashen village of Martakert region [Artsakh]. I moved out when I came to Stepanakert to study, then I stayed for work and continued living alone.

On the first day of the war, on September 26th, sorry, 27th... The thing is, I love hiking and I bought different types of hiking accessories from Yerevan [capital of Armenia], for a venture we were going to start with my friend: tents, sleeping bags, a hammock, and things like that... September 27 was her brother's birthday, so we had decided to go to Shushi [Artsakh], try out the hiking gear I bought, and celebrate her brother's birthday.

I arranged the bags and set an alarm to wake up early. Before the alarm went off I was already half awake, feeling excited before the trip. I started hearing some sounds, sounds of explosions. Sleepy, I couldn't understand what was happening at first. Sounds continued, I got out, I had a small balcony... The apartment I was renting was built on a garage, there was a building in front of me, so I couldn't see the sky well. But all the residents of the building in front had gone outside. Everyone was agitated, it was impossible to understand what was happening. So the explosions continue and I am staring blankly, stunned, and still don't understand what's this all about... all these explosions in the air, then another one, closer, just a few buildings away, the roof got hit by a drone... everything shattered… We finally understood that it’s war.

I remember an interesting scene, there was a truck standing on the side of the road, a ZIL. The hood was open, and a man was repairing something. He didn’t even raise his head... I was looking at him the whole time, it's interesting that now going back step by step I recall this scene, and the first person whom I remember is the one who didn't panic at all, as if something very ordinary was happening. Meanwhile, the sounds of children crying could be heard from the building in front. It was around 7 am, I can't recall the exact time now... Well, at that time on a Sunday everyone is usually asleep. There was a constant buzz in the air: people’s voices, noises, cries, phone conversations, mostly with the relatives in the army. We were quickly scrolling through Facebook to understand the situation... I was still standing on my balcony, and I can't say how long I stayed there.

Well, we finally understood that the war had started. The most terrifying image haunting my imagination since childhood was war. Ever since I was a kid, and heard stories about the previous war from my dad. I had nightmares about it. When I was older, we had one similar experience during the short April war in 2016.

People quickly went down to the basements. First I wanted to go wearing just shorts and a T-shirt, then I remembered stories from the past that the elders told, about how long they stayed in the basement, etc., etc., so I thought that all this might take long, another bombing might start after we enter the basement. I came home, put on long pants, sneakers... you don't know how long you'd stay there.

Meanwhile, my mom and dad also woke up from explosions. My sister-in-law saw the drones flying over the village, so she woke up my brother and told him the war had started. Right from the beginning they [the Azerbaijani military] were already hitting the important air defense systems, and military units, all of them at once. My brother's first reaction was, "Are you kidding me?" Naturally, they called me to see if I was all right, but my cell was unavailable because I was in the basement. Then at some point... I don't remember if I moved to a place with a stronger network signal, and mom called, or if I called mom... to be honest, I don't remember. Mom was surprisingly very emotional, almost crying. Well, I said, "Okay mom, please be calm, why are you getting so emotional?" In our family, we don't panic easily.

The bombing stopped for a brief period, but the buzz of noises and voices was still there, people had already come out of the basement, everyone was in panic... The civil defense sirens were turned on in the city, I don't know if you have ever heard the sound of sirens, it's quite distressing. It was the first time in my life I heard it. During the April war in 2016 I was a student living in a dormitory, but at that time whatever happened, was at the border, and we were not aware of anything. And now the first blow was right on the capital, and naturally it was serious.

I sat on the steps in front of the house. I needed to do something, I don't know... have coffee (laughs). I called my sister, she was so alarmed, I said, "OK, relax, look, I'm sitting outside drinking coffee, everything is fine, everything will be all right." My friends started writing me: how are you, etc... One of my close friends from Shushi wrote me, they saw how bombs were dropped on Stepanakert. At that time nothing had happened in Shushi yet. We talked a bit, I even said, such a pity, we didn't go to Shushi. At that moment, within the first few hours, we still did not realize that it was a full-scale war, we thought maybe they [Azerbaijanis] were just scaring us. So I kind of hoped that maybe it would be short, and we would do our party anyway. But we talked it over and decided this was out of the question for the moment.

Then my brother called and said he was leaving for the front line. He was going to come and take me home so that the whole family could stay together. First I disagreed, but he insisted, “You never know what’s gonna happen, it’s better if the family stays together.”

He came to pick me up... I had bought a military panama hat, another one of my new hiking accessories. My brother asked me, “Can you give it to me, to wear?” I said, "OK, you're going for just a couple of days, and will ruin my new hat. They will give you a hat there.” So I didn't give it to him… we couldn’t imagine that it would be such a large-scale war.

When we reached home I felt exhausted and went to my room to lie down. Before leaving, my brother came in and said, "Well, I'm going now." Very calmly, without any excessive emotions, I hugged him, and said, "Just be careful, ok?” Didn’t want him to feel disheartened. Perhaps it's also a question of upbringing, to understand who should go to the front line, and how important it is... There was no crying...

The events were developing fast, and we started hearing the names of the first victims. We decided to go to the next village, located a little higher, to Vank village, it’s in the rear. By the time we reached there, the cellphone signal had become terrible: no internet, no phone, nothing. My mom and dad left me and my sister-in-law in the village, and went back. From the moment they left, they became unreachable, we talked to them the next afternoon, because there was no cellphone signal. Somehow, there was still internet at the neighbor's, maybe because of the location of their house. I connected to see what was happening, and I read that some volunteer groups started forming. The thing is, some infrastructures were disrupted, because many men went to war, and many women left because of the panic. So volunteers were desperately needed. Among the most important places were the bakeries, where they needed people to bake bread. So I said, well, I'm going back to Stepanakert, I have to go, despite everyone’s objections. My sister-in-law’s father gave me a lift.

On the way we met a car... which was... and it’s painful to say this... a family was leaving Artsakh on a loaded truck. It was only the second day of the war.

***

Upon arrival in Stepanakert, I went to my house and contacted the groups coordinating volunteers. They told me where there was a need for baking bread and I went to that bakery. Well, we were working, baking bread, it was a very unusual job for me. There were many volunteers during the first few days, then gradually the number decreased because Stepanakert was already being systematically bombed and many people found refuge in Armenia or the rear. One of my close friends, who wasn’t called to the front line, joined me in the bakery. We were very close, before the war we had a dance group. We were mostly doing the evening shifts at the bakery because at night only a few women were working alone, and those were the most difficult hours when the volunteers were really needed. We would bake bread all night, go to sleep for a few hours, then go to the water factory to help there during the day...

Sorry... before going to that bakery, I joined some women in the fruit factory, to help sort the fruits preventing them from going bad. Now that I think of it, it seems absurd, because It seems to me there were other more important things to do. Anyhow, I went, there were a lot of other women there, we talked about this and that. There was even someone from the Artsakh Ministry of Culture, she was such a fun person, was telling interesting stories, making jokes... We probably stayed for five or six hours, and we lost touch with reality for a moment and forgot where we were... There was a woman with us, whose husband and son were on the front lines at that moment. We were cleaning peaches, they were very big ones (laughs).

Then I realized that helping to bake bread was more needed at that moment, and switched. The particular bakery where we were working was providing bread for the army even before the war. When the war started, the bread we made was loaded on trucks and sent to the front line.
So we would help in the bakery at night, and at the water factory during the day. There was a warehouse next to the water factory, and we also helped them arrange and sort the cargo that arrived and had to be sent to the front line. People sent so much humanitarian aid, from different parts of Armenia that we haven’t even seen before in our lives. It was all sent to the front lines, but a lot didn’t reach the destination, because the drones hit those cars. This was the reason that at times the food did not reach the front line, but I saw it with my own eyes and loaded it on the truck myself.
***
Another one of my close friends called and said that she was in Aknaghbyur village of Askeran region [Artsakh]. During the previous war, Aknaghbyur was the safest village, people from different parts of Artsakh, women, came to that village for shelter. My friend and I agreed that the bread truck would bring her to Stepanakert on its way back from the front line. She joined us, and now all three of us were helping at the bakery.

The more time progressed, the worse the situation got. One evening the electricity was off because of the bombings, and we couldn’t make bread, a whole batch of dough went bad. During the bombings the “safe” place to be, if you are in the building, is between the doorways. So there we are... it was a little wide doorway, we were sitting, talking... And I ask, “What are you going to do when the war ends.” My friend said, that we'll go to my place, sit together, drink, sing dance... One of my friends used to always bring me something when she traveled, and she brought me a bottle of rum long ago...
***
This went on for quite a while, sometimes we couldn't tell the days apart, because we were doing the same thing every day: we were working in the evenings, going to sleep around five in the morning, then going to the water factory in the afternoon, then again to the bakery, etc. It had become like a second home to us, that bakery.

Once after our usual shift at the bakery, we went home to sleep around 5 am. We used to go to bed with our daily clothes on. At first, we went down to the basement, we brought a small hot bread to share. Then, quite full of ourselves, we announced we were going to sleep at home that day. So we came home, we were about to go to sleep when we started worrying and decided better not take any chances and go back to the basement. So we went back... During such times people become socially equal to each other, and we were immediately given some space to sleep... plus they knew the three of us as volunteers, when in fact, this was the least we could do... When we were about to fall asleep, there was another bombardment right in the area of our building. There was a power plant near it, and it was very important for them [Azerbaijanis] to deprive us of electricity as well. So they were constantly bombing there, but since it wasn’t always very accurate, the bombs were also hitting the apartment buildings around. Well, I imagine what would've happened had we slept at home... At that time, a guy went out of the basement to buy cigarettes. It was almost around sunrise when he was brought back to the shelter with his head injured. I remember me and my friend were completely frozen, we felt no emotions, not even a muscle moved on our faces.

A bit later some French journalists came, taking interviews. The bombing continued, and we heard news that there were already deaths in the power plant. At that time, the Ministry of Emergency Situations in Stepanakert was working quite well. Under the bombardment, they came instantly and took the boy with the injured head to the hospital.

Our friend from Shushi called and said that she would come get us because our building was very dangerous, they started bombing constantly. I said, “No way, you’re coming to do what exactly? You might be bombed right in front of our building!” So I kind of thought that the discussion was over, but then I got another call, it was my friend again, saying they were waiting outside to pick us up. Well, at that point I couldn’t have made her wait long... within seconds, I entered my flat, I took only my passport, the passport of my other friend (it was with me, I mentioned earlier that right before the war we were going to register an ethnic dance group together), and whatever I have prepared in my bag: a toothbrush, some spare clothes... nothing much. My friend told me that in Shushi they needed volunteers in the bakery even more than in Stepanakert, so we would sure be useful there as well.

Once in Shushi, we went to a large bomb shelter, quite well equipped for such situations. They called us from the bakery, saying the dough was ready and we should be there by 3 pm. We were about to leave, when some woman there said, "I'm cooking, eat something before you go, you’ll need it.” So we’re quickly eating, don’t want to be late when we hear a loud explosion, very loud. The air raid siren goes off, then we learn that they hit Shushi's House of Culture, it was quite big, and had just been built before the war. There were a lot of deaths, wounded... I don’t know the specific number to be honest, but a lot. One of the guys went to help, he later told us the horrors he had seen.

The large-scale bombardment paralyzed everything, we were unable to resume work at the bakery and stayed in the basement for a few days. It was getting quite dangerous, and my friend’s parents kept telling us to leave. But we didn’t want to, because leaving felt too similar to an ending. I remember a lot of people of came and went these few days, brought humanitarian aid... people from Armenia, from the Diaspora... Whenever I call my brother, he keeps telling me to leave too, so I get angry, how can I leave, how is this possible? In the end, my friend's mother pulls me aside and says, "It's your fault that you and your friends are not leaving, if you agree to leave, they will agree too." I got very upset because God forbid something happens to my friends, I would feel guilty. So I agreed to leave.

On the way, we stop in front of my friend's apartment building, it was that building in front of the Ghazanchetsots church. She goes up quickly to take a few personal documents, no time to take much else. I call my mother, and that’s the only time I get emotional. My mother says, "So it’s all that bad if you are coming...?" I forgot to say, that since my sister-in-law was pregnant, we decided that my parents should move with her to Yerevan, so they had been here for a while already.

The tree of us, we say, “Can you imagine if we never come back?” We laugh, that seems impossible. But we’re all very sad, because leaving feels like treason, like abandoning... My friend's mother comes with us all the way to Goris [Armenia] so that we don't decide to run off and go back. In Goris, we go to the Women's Resource Center to wait until my cousin comes to pick us up. There were a lot of various people there, and when we got out to meet my cousin, one of them approached us, and handed some money to my friend, saying that we might need it. She does not accept the money... all this feels so horrible... not because that gesture was humiliating, no, but because it suddenly hit us, that we are like refugees now. Anyway… we cried, quite a lot, then calmed down.

We arrived at my grandma’s, mom and daughter-in-law were also there. This collision of different realities... as if we landed on another planet. Now I accept it, but I couldn’t when we just arrived. The first feeling was the quietness and calmness at my grandmother's house, people could not fully comprehend the situation in Artsakh. Plus on the night we arrived, there was an occasion: my uncle's grandson was born. It was a happy occasion, of course, people were not playing zurna and dhol [musical instruments traditionally played at various gatherings in Armenia] but still it was a good occasion because a child was born. But it felt kind of... we couldn't fit into that atmosphere, because the reality we’d just left was too different. Of course, that's natural because it doesn't... people should not live as if they are always in a disaster zone, of course, they can worry, and get frustrated with the news, but everyday life cannot be paralyzed as it is, for example, in a building where the bombardments are constant. Of course, it's even absurd that it should be like that...
***
Here, we were constantly trying to do something, not be idle, to be useful. We joined some volunteer groups in Yerevan and helped a little. I remember there was a place where they were packaging salt and condensed milk into small single-use plastic bags. To make it easy to use. This was perhaps… just doing something for the salvation of the soul... Because most of us... many of us have not even been to Artsakh. Not only in Artsakh, let's say, there can be someone living in Yerevan who has never been to Tavush [Armenia], for example, like I have never been to Meghri [Armenia]. People who have not been to Artsakh don’t have a clear understanding of the situation. Those people who have been in Artsakh could understand to some extent what is the border, what is the rear, what the situation is like there… And those who have never been, have a more filmic idea of what’s happening.

We wanted to go back, but it wasn’t possible. We thought the situation would get better, but it only got worse and worse, so when I talked to my father, he said, "It doesn't make sense for you to come, what are you going to do?"

Here... we’re always together, the three of us. When we arrived, we didn't have basic clothes to wear because we didn't bring any, who could have imagined that this would happen? We bought the same warm clothes to wear back then, and we still have them. The days went by, and on the ninth [of November 2020], we found out that the ceasefire agreement was signed. We looked at the map and saw that our village was handed over to Azerbaijan, even though there was no military action in our village. The civilian population was given five days to vacate the village. It was handed over just like that... we went and brought what we could. The war was over, but not really...

Now there’s the blockade [at the time of this recording, Azerbaijan was keeping Artsakh under blockade from December 2022 till September 2023]... plus after that, after the war, I can't tell you the number, but many territories from the Republic of Armenia and Artsakh, which were not included in the ceasefire agreement, were captured by Azerbaijan by force. They bombed Jermuk [Armenia], Sev Lich, Vardenis, many other areas... so many victims again...
***
Naturally, it's not like we remember our home only during wartime, we lived there the happiest years of our life, and our childhood was spent there. Our house, our gardens we created over the years, all resemble a small paradise in our memories. All this time we’re here it’s those memories that sustain us, and give us strength. Just like we eat food to sustain ourselves physically, the images of the past sustain our spirits. Even under these conditions, we don’t lose hope that we will go back, I think that if that dream is lost, we will no longer... our life will no longer have any meaning to it. I don't know if it will happen or not, under these circumstances it will be a bit absurd to say that it definitely will in the very near future, but losing the dream will mean losing the colors of life. But having a dream means taking certain steps to achieve it, directly or indirectly, and taking steps means that you will definitely achieve something. Only if you don't do anything, then you’ll have nothing.

The war is not over yet, and now all my thoughts are with Artsakh, our people living there, and people very close to me. All my blood relatives are here, but my close friends are in Artsakh, and every day I wake up thinking about them, and go to sleep thinking about them. Every day I think about it and I am full of hope that one day we will come to the realization that we need to solve our problems ourselves. The century has turned, and once again, we are facing the threat of genocide... and it will surely happen, knowing the enemy. I am sure, I know, I have seen it, and I know the history very, very well... In 1915 they say that wherever Armenians took up arms to defend themselves, they lived... We have to be strong and... I don't know if everything will be all right, but I certainly hope for the best...