Photographs by Ani Balayan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n March 28, 2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last September, the armed forces of Azerbaijan overran Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave lodged inside the country\u2019s internationally recognized borders. The conquest brought to a close the longest-running frozen conflict to arise from the breakup of the Soviet Union. It also resulted in the removal of more than 100,000 Armenians who resided in the region, known among them as Artsakh, now virtually emptied of its indigenous population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Azerbaijani regime\u2014flush with petrodollars and with some of the West\u2019s most powerful lobbying firms on retainer<\/u><\/a>\u2014sought to portray the exodus as voluntary. The Armenians, it said, were free to remain in the territory as \u201cordinary citizens of Azerbaijan.\u201d Yet the military sweep had been preceded by a months-long blockade that left food, medicine, and fuel in short supply, plunging the community, including some 30,000 children, into hunger and malnutrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, too, the regime had injected its own population with toxic anti-Armenian propaganda in the decades before the takeover. This included the bizarre claim that Armenians are ethnic \u201cinterlopers\u201d who had usurped the region from its real indigenous population, the long-since-disappeared Roman Albanians (not to be confused with Balkan Albanians). The campaign also included the destruction of ancient cross stones<\/u><\/a>, church inscriptions<\/u><\/a>, and other markers of Armenian civilization, which Baku characterized as \u201cforgeries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Add the steady stream of images from earlier rounds of the conflict showing captive Armenian soldiers in distress or having their dead bodies desecrated, and the Karabakhi Armenians had good reason to fear that they faced a massacre once Azerbaijan overwhelmed their position: a replay of the first modern genocide that killed a million of their kin in the Ottoman Empire and dispersed hundreds of thousands more during World War I. Flight was the only option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What follows is an account of the final days of a vanished society, as told by six women who survived its disappearance. Based on extensive interviews with the women conducted across Armenia proper, this narrative amounts to the first public oral history of one of the clearest cases of 21st-century ethnic cleansing, carried out in broad daylight and with minimal protest from Western capitals. Their stories present a harrowing study of what it\u2019s like to lose a home and a community in a flash of days. They also attest to the resilience of the Armenian people\u2014and to the indomitable spirit of women in wartime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cI have bright, fond memories of that day and horrible ones, too,\u201d said Naira Danielyan, 34, a stout, bubbly teacher who lived in Martuni, a town in the eastern part of the territory, close to the border with Azerbaijan. The previous day, a friend had sought her help finding condensed sweet milk, a Soviet-era favorite that outlasted the Communist empire, to use in a birthday cake for her daughter. Naira relayed this on her Facebook wall, hoping someone in her circle might have a can to spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such food items, once commonplace, were now preciously rare as the Azerbaijani-imposed blockade entered its 10th month. \u201cWith time, it became more and more difficult,\u201d Naira said. \u201cThe lack of bread, the lack of sweets for the children was especially painful. The kids would cry for sweets, and you couldn\u2019t do anything about that.\u201d At the high school where Naira taught Armenian literature, \u201cyou could watch the kids get thinner and thinner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Medication was scarce, too. Initially, those in need of drugs for chronic conditions such as her father\u2019s low blood pressure had merely to endure long lines. But after a while, imported stocks dried up, and pharmaceutical products simply became unavailable. Naira recalled, \u201cWe were forced to go back to the traditional cures: \u2018This plant is good for diabetes, that one for high blood pressure.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A far more severe humanitarian crisis would likely have unfolded were it not for the Armenian community\u2019s resourcefulness and solidarity. Case in point: On that sunny, mild Tuesday, Naira in between her work hours stopped by the home of a friend who had seen her Facebook message and offered her last can of sweet milk, figuring that the blockade was sure to be lifted by December when her own daughter\u2019s birthday would roll around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Naira went to the bank where the happy recipient of the sweet milk worked, she received a curious bit of news in addition to gratitude. \u201cShe told me that her bank had told employees to be extra-careful that day, because there had been \u2018activity\u2019 in the [military] positions.\u201d It wasn\u2019t clear what Naira was supposed to do with this information, but to be safe, she pulled her 8-year-old son, Eduard, from his school and raced home; it was early afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I got home with this news,\u201d Naira said, \u201cwhatever I was doing\u2014cleaning, cooking\u2014I was doing it distractedly. I had this feeling<\/em>.\u201d But her relatives were skeptical. \u201cRelax!,\u201d her father said. \u201cWho would announce beforehand that they\u2019re going to invade?\u201d Minutes afterward the blast of an exploding shell settled his question. The invasion had begun. Naira and her family raced to the municipal bomb shelter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n TWENTY-FIVE MILES to the west, in Stepanakert, the seat of the ill-fated Republic of Artsakh and the territory\u2019s biggest city, Alisa Minasyan and her husband, Samuel, were churning milk into butter when the distant shelling began at about 1 p.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though they lived in an apartment in the city, the family also owned a small farm in Khnapat village, about 12 miles north of the city, which meant that the blockade period was less daunting for them than it had been for other urban dwellers. \u201cWe started preparing for long-term survival,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it was easier if you were working with a piece of land. We could grow potatoes. Potatoes grow on their own basically.\u201d Access to the countryside also brought milk and other dairy products, allowing Alisa to make homemade sweets and butter for her kids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not long after the shells began to fall that day, Samuel, who served in the republic\u2019s military, was called up to the \u201cpositions.\u201d Alisa, a 48-year-old woman with a wide face and striking gray eyes, had lost her father and brother in earlier stages of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. And as Samuel bid her farewell, she trembled to think she might lose him, as well. But she buried that evil thought. For now, she had more immediate headaches to deal with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her 15-year-old son, Armen, was studying at a premedical college about two miles away, while her daughter, Elina, 14, was at the local high school. A neighbor who also studied at the premed college picked up her son. Elina\u2019s school wouldn\u2019t release her, but Elina skipped the day\u2019s last class and made her way home. \u201cAnd just as she came in, I was reading a bulletin from the Artsakh informational headquarters: \u2018Everything is under control. Dear parents, don\u2019t panic. Don\u2019t take your kids out of school.\u2019 As soon as I finished reading it, the electricity went out, and the shelling became more intense.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Their apartment was located near a power station that the Azerbaijanis were apparently determined to take out, so the shockwaves that followed each boom felt especially powerful, shaking windows and rippling through their innards. Alisa and her kids decamped for a closeby bomb shelter, where they huddled with dozens of other families in the dust and dark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As dusk fell, Samuel called from the front and asked to speak with Armen. Father instructed son to protect his mother and sister, and to check to make sure the other families in the basement were all right. Then the call was cut off. Glued to the blue glow of her smartphone, Alisa didn\u2019t sleep that night as she waited for more calls or text messages from her husband; none would come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ELSEWHERE IN STEPANAKERT, Yana Daftyan, aged 41, spent Tuesday morning volunteering to hand out food rations at the republic\u2019s ministry of social affairs. \u201cThe way we were situated in the building,\u201d she recalled, \u201cwe could see the hills, and we could see the shelling clearly. We saw the explosions starting at 1 p.m.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A violinist by training, the slender, elegant mother of two had taught at a musical college in Shushi before the Armenians lost the city in 2020, when Azerbaijan seized the districts that ringed the republic to the south. On the way to teaching a class one day, Yana found herself enrapt by the melodies that wafted from a nearby studio. They belonged to \u201cWe and Our Mountains,\u201d a song-and-dance troupe that staged the traditional music of Artsakh. Yana decided to join the troupe as a singer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against all odds, \u201cWe and Our Mountains\u201d had continued to practice and perform through the blockade. \u201cIt was like life had stopped,\u201d she recalled. \u201cBut we were stubborn. There were singers and dancers who were coming on foot from the nearby villages now that there was no transport and no petrol.\u201d And even under those conditions they took part in a national arts festival held in Armenia\u2014via the internet\u2014\u201cjust to make them understand that we are here. We\u2019re alive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But could they stay there even as the shelling drew closer? \u201cI called my children,\u201d Yana said. \u201cOne was studying, the other was working. I stayed in the ministry\u2019s storage facility for a couple of hours, and then in the early evening, my son joined me at home, and we made it to the basement of the building across from us. But my daughter wasn\u2019t with us, because she was working.\u201d Adding to Yana\u2019s anxiety, \u201cthere were so many people in there I could hardly breathe.\u201d Finally at about 8 p.m., her daughter made her way on foot through the shelling to join the family in the basement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LIKE NAIRA, SHOGHIK Mirzoyan spent the morning of the invasion searching for a rare product: namely, a pair of winter boots for her mother. \u201cI was walking from shop to shop in Stepanakert and not having any luck,\u201d she recalled. \u201cAnd when there were shellings, I didn\u2019t even pay attention. There was always<\/em> something blowing up somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But then she realized that others in the streets were in a panic. A few told her that they were hurrying to pick up their kids from school, and Shoghik resolved to do the same with her three kids: son Tigran, 13; daughter Irina, 11; and baby Sergei, 3. Shoghik first grabbed Sergei from kindergarten. Tigran, meanwhile, called to inform her that he was already home. \u201cBut I had no news of my daughter, and by five in the evening when we went to the basement, I still had no news.\u201d In a panic, Shoghik called Irina\u2019s teachers, who told her that the girl had been evacuated to the basement of the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n News of her husband, Eric, was harder to come by. A captain who served as a communications officer with the republic\u2019s armed forces, Eric was almost certainly at or near the front. Uncertain of his status, Shoghik and her kids prepared for a long stay in the basement shelter, which belonged to a neighbor across the street. \u201cHis was the only house with a basement in the area, and he could host the other families. It\u2019s better that way. If you have your own private basement with the kids, alone, you go crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n RAISA AGHABEKYAN LIKEWISE had to deal with multiple kids spread across different locations in Stepanakert as the invasion began. She was at her job teaching indoor agriculture at a technical college when rumors circulated that the Azerbaijanis had attacked some of the surrounding villages and might soon roll into the city. \u201cMy middle son was sick at home,\u201d she recalled, \u201cmy younger was in kindergarten, and the older was in school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She texted her eldest to pick up the kindergartener and head home as the artillery blasts confirmed the morning\u2019s rumors. \u201cI was afraid for my [older] son,\u201d she said, \u201cWe could already feel the aftershocks of the shells. It was total panic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirty-five going on 50, her large eyes and classically arched brows framed by graying hair, Raisa was born in Martuni but settled in Shushi after the First Karabakh War. That\u2019s when the Armenians had won independence in historical Artsakh and captured some of its neighboring districts, expelling ethnic Azerbaijanis in the pattern of pogroms and counter-pogroms and population transfers that has shaped this region since the dawn of modern nationalism in the early 20th century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By 2020, however, the balance of forces had tipped in favor of Azerbaijan\u2014including in the realm of Western p.r., where the kleptocratic Baku regime had managed to present itself as a strategic asset against Iran and a potential energy source for Europe. Armed with powerful Israeli drones, the Azerbaijanis inflicted devastating losses on the republic\u2019s defenders. Footage proliferated online of Armenians singing goodbye hymns to churches where their ancestors had worshiped going back centuries; the Trump administration was indifferent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the last day of the war, just before a ceasefire had been reached, Raisa\u2019s younger brother, Sasun, was shot in the knee. With his comrades unable to evacuate him, Sasun had bled out his life at the front; he was 30. Raisa\u2019s family, and the college where she worked, had been relocated to Stepanakert along with many others from Shushi. Now, as chaos swirled around her in Stepanakert, Raisa wondered if she would have to escape\u2014again. No<\/em>, she recalled thinking to herself. Even if everybody else leaves, my younger brother\u2019s grave is here. I\u2019m not leaving. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn\u2019t have a phone connection to check if my kids reached home or not,\u201d she said. \u201cThen I finally received a message from my older son saying, \u2018We\u2019re already there.\u2019\u201d Her heart dropped when she finally got home and found her kids missing. \u201cLuckily, it turned out the neighbors had realized that my kids were in there, and they had taken them to a safer place in the basement.\u201d Her husband, Ashot, meanwhile, had been called to the front and was incommunicado. \u201cA lot of women were getting news about their husbands in the front, but I didn\u2019t have news for two days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cSamuel was a very caring husband and father, and even when the connection was bad, he would always find some other means to get in touch with us and ask about the kids. So when I hadn\u2019t heard from him, I already knew there was something wrong.\u201d Alisa Minasyan and her kids had spent the night in the shelter trying not to voice the unsayable. The morning brought news of a ceasefire, orders to go home, and the sight of the first men returning from the front with instructions to burn their uniforms and other military paraphernalia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI watched the other men burn their clothes and photos,\u201d Alisa recalled, \u201cand he wasn\u2019t among them.\u201d In the event, \u201cit was time to start thinking about protecting ourselves.\u201d Amid the confusion, Armen rolled by in the family car\u2014he wasn\u2019t supposed to drive, but Samuel had been teaching him how since he was 11\u2014with vague thoughts of going somewhere<\/em>. Around the same time, Alisa\u2019s brother-in-law stopped by. \u201cAnd he lied to us,\u201d she said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t tell us that my husband is dead, though he\u2019d heard the news. He said, \u2018I\u2019ll take you somewhere safe, I\u2019ll drive to the airport. And then I\u2019ll go to take care of him, because he\u2019s wounded.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn the way to the airport, we drove by two hospitals, and my son said to my brother-in-law, \u2018When you get to where Father is, if you\u2019re next to him, call me, because I just want to hear his voice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The airport was overrun with anxious people. Amid the pandaemonium, Alisa spotted a comrade of her husband\u2019s from the military. \u201cHe was looking for his family and couldn\u2019t find them, because it was so hectic. I asked him where my husband was. He looked at me and said, \u2018He\u2019s not with us anymore. He\u2019s in the morgue.\u2019\u201d During the initial invasion, the entrance to Samuel\u2019s base had come under attack. Samuel had pushed aside a woman in the line of fire and taken the hit. It was two days short of his 43rd birthday. (All told, around 200 service members of the Republic of Artsakh were killed and double that figure wounded in the course of the invasion.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the evening, Russian peacekeepers, who controlled the airport, announced that any family still in possession of its residence should return to it. Alisa took in her in-laws, who had also arrived at the airport from their village, Khnapat. For now, there was no room for grief\u2014only her new duties as a widow and single mother.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n RAISA AGHABEKYAN WONDERED if she should evacuate to the airport. \u201cI had a friend working in the Artsakh parliament,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI called her for advice and asked, \u2018What do I do?\u2019 She said, \u2018I don\u2019t know what you should do. If you feel unsafe, you can go to the airport.\u2019\u201d Raisa resolved to stay, telling her friend, \u201cMy husband is at the front, and I can\u2019t reach him. This is the only place I have. We aren\u2019t going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut you know what the Azeri offer is, right?\u201d her politically connected friend shot back. \u201cThe women and the kids can go with the Russian convoy, but the men had to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey can go hang it,\u201d Raisa thought to herself as she hung up the line. When she stepped out into the street, she realized that several other wives had reached the same conclusion. There was fear and uncertainty, but the duties of the moment kept them at bay. \u201cI had frozen lavash dough in the freezer, and one of the local bakers had managed to bring a kilogram of flour. So we started baking lavash bread in a small oven to feed the families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A RUSSIAN OFFICER stopped by the basement where Yana Daftyan and other families were sheltering and offered to transport them halfway to the Stepanakert airport. They walked the rest of the distance, for about two hours. Shortly after they arrived, however, they were told that the ceasefire would hold, and that they should return home. \u201cSo again we walked for several hours,\u201d Yana recalled. \u201cWhen we got home, I learned that my brother, who was at the front, had been surrounded and captured. \u201cThere was no food, no water, and I was frozen with fear for my brother and my own kids. It was an endless horror.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n NEWS OF THE ceasefire prompted Shoghik Mirzoyan and her children to leave the shelter and return home. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have any firewood ourselves, because our heating system was electric,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we put a stove in the yard, and all the neighbors brought firewood. The kids already sensed that these may be their last few days in Artsakh, so they started playing volleyball and other games.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n It soon dawned on Tigran, her 13-year-old son, that they would have to leave the family dog behind, and the thought ruined his appetite for play. \u201cHe was hugging the dog and crying,\u201d Shoghik said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n WITH THE ELECTRICITY unstable, the comforts of a stove were also what awaited Naira Danielyan and her family as they emerged from the shelter amid the ceasefire. \u201cWe boiled water and washed off the dust of the basement.\u201d But what were they to eat? Naira\u2019s husband, a car mechanic, had been left more or less unemployed during the blockade: The fuel shortage discouraged driving, and fewer cars on the road meant even fewer cars to repair; cash had been short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Naira remembered the meat: \u201cWe\u2019d had it in the freezer for months, but we\u2019d decided to keep that for a real emergency. We treated the frozen meat like a holy object. Every day of the blockade felt like that \u2018real emergency,\u2019 so we would be tempted to eat it. But then we\u2019d tell ourselves, \u2018OK, today we managed to collect some tomatoes, some eggplants, or whatever, so we\u2019re fine.\u2019 And so we held off eating the meat. \u2018There must be a worse day yet to come,\u2019 we kept telling ourselves.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sept. 20, 2023, was that worst of all days, and the Danielyans finally savored their holy meat. Then Naira returned to the shelter with Eduard, their son. The boy was adamant that the shelling could start anew, raining deadly fire upon them at any moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>Jemma Marabyan suffered a different kind of ordeal than that faced by the other women. If you followed events in Karabakh during the September 2023 invasion on social media, you may have seen smartphone footage, published by the Azerbaijanis, showcasing their troops kindly ministering to an old woman with short hair lying flat on a stretcher. They offer her water and later evacuate her and a couple of other ailing women to a clinic, where nurses take their blood pressure and serve them fruits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What actually transpired, once the cameras stopped filming, was rather different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 72-year-old mother of two and grandmother of seven lived in a hamlet of about 100 souls called Sarnaghbyur in the eastern portion of Karabakh, close to the border with Azerbaijan. On Tuesday, when the invasion began, Sarnaghbyur sustained especially heavy fire, with many killed and maimed, including Jemma\u2019s adult son, who was wounded in the leg by shrapnel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By Thursday, Azerbaijani forces had taken control of Sarnaghbyur and were surveying the area for signs of life when they came upon Jemma, her son, and two neighbors sheltering under a tree. The local mayor had guided them there for protection, such as it was, while he drove other survivors, including members of Jemma\u2019s family, to safer points deeper inside Karabakh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was almost in a coma from my high blood pressure by that point,\u201d Jemma said. \u201cWhat the Azerbaijanis did was make videos of me, showing them helping me. But after these two minutes of helping me, afterward they did nothing for me.\u201d The four captives were transported across the border to the city of Agdam, where, after a little more publicity filmmaking, the orderlies used scissors to tear off Jemma\u2019s clothes, leaving her naked and humiliated before dressing her in a flimsy gown and abandoning her to a bed for the next several days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll they gave us was tea, tea, tea,\u201d she recalled. \u201cThere was no bread. The hospital room was swarming with flies, but one time when I covered my face with a blanket, suddenly one of the orderlies barged in and started slapping me over and over until the doctor heard the commotion and came in, and that somehow put an end to the beating.\u201d Unbeknownst to Jemma at the time, but later confirmed by the other evacuees from Sarnaghbyur, the Azerbaijani authorities were meting out far more brutal beatings to her son that she claimed had left him unable to use one arm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As she lay in bed, hungry and smarting from the unaccountable punishment she had received, Jemma had no clue as to his whereabouts, or what sort of fate awaited her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n BACK IN STEPANAKERT, Alisa Minasyan dispatched her son, Armen, to a governmental building to charge her phone, since there was no stable electricity at home. But when she heard that Azerbaijani troops were descending en masse on Krkjan, a village just two and a half miles southeast of the city, she quickly called him back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NAIRA\u2019S HUSBAND REFUSED to join her and Eduard in the shelter. On Thursday, \u201che called me and said, \u2018What are you waiting for? When are you coming home? OK, we\u2019ve had some losses, there is a war, this is another struggle in our lives that we have to pass through. But there is zero chance that we will ever leave Artsakh.\u2019\u201d Naira promised to return soon\u2014but only after she was able to recharge her phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen I got home, my husband was planting coriander in the garden,\u201d she recalled. \u201cWhen I look back now, I don\u2019t know if I was crazy or na\u00efve or patriotic. But even though we could hear the sound of the tanks and other heavy military equipment that were being turned over to the Azeris as part of the ceasefire, I felt at peace. I went to our bedroom and for the first time in a long while, I slept deeply. \u2018This is my home,\u2019 I told myself. My brain knew that anything could happen at any time. But I was in my home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>Three days into the ceasefire, Raisa Aghabekyan had been reunited with her husband, who returned safely from the front and burned his uniform and other military gear on instructions from high command. That morning, she called her politically connected friend in the republic\u2019s legislature once more, desperate for information.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her friend said, \u201cThis is the deal: Give up Artsakh for your lives. If you want to survive, you need to leave. This is the offer.\u201d Reality was chipping away at her determination to stay. \u201cWe were at a point where we didn\u2019t have a choice,\u201d Raisa recalled. \u201cWe had already survived the hunger, the lack of electricity\u2026. There was shelling everywhere around, the kids were screaming. By that point, we didn\u2019t have a choice, and we didn\u2019t have time to think.\u201d Still, Raisa wasn\u2019t ready to leave Sasun\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A HARSH REALITY\u2014the lack of food, electricity, and other supplies\u2014intruded upon Naira Danielyan\u2019s brief wartime idyll. It was time to leave for the one place the Karabakhi Armenians could find safety: the Republic of Armenia, connected to Karabakh via a winding mountain road called the Lachin Corridor. Under earlier ceasefire agreements, the corridor was supposed to be kept open and under the control of a small contingent of Russian peacekeepers. But when the Azerbaijanis had launched their blockade, the Kremlin didn\u2019t intervene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That September, however, traffic between Karabakh and Armenia proper would briefly surge to unprecedented levels\u2014to facilitate departure of the entire Armenian population at Azerbaijan\u2019s behest. So it was that a roadway meant to serve as the community\u2019s lifeline brought about the Karabakhi Armenians\u2019 near-total ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By Saturday, the Karabakhi authorities had begun to arrange transportation by bus for the ailing and elderly and those who didn\u2019t own private vehicles. The Minasyans, who had a car, would have to find their own way. But how was Naira supposed to leave her home? And what was she going to take with her?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe first thing that came to my mind was to grab our documents,\u201d she recalled. \u201cPlus some money. And clothes for Eduard, because I remembered how difficult it was to obtain clothes during the blockade, and I was thinking that at least I wouldn\u2019t have to spend money again to buy clothes once we crossed to the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naira\u2019s parents lived in the house next door, where Naira was born and raised. \u201cMy mother had some flour,\u201d she said, \u201cand she\u2019d started the fermentation process. But then there were rumors that unless you left with the Russian convoy, you would be unsafe. So I urged my parents to leave with my sister\u2019s family. They left, and I took over the baking. There seemed to be plenty of time, and so I thought, OK, I will say goodbye to my childhood home<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe farewell to my own house wasn\u2019t nearly as emotionally heavy as my farewell to my childhood home. I was overwhelmed especially because my mother had thoroughly cleaned her house, as if she had just gone over to have a cup of tea with the neighbor. Even the cloth she\u2019d used, she\u2019d washed and dried and put away neatly. Then I walked around, and I saw my father\u2019s eau de cologne in their bedroom, plus his blood pressure monitor. Looking at this stuff, I got angry with my mother.\u00a0Why didn\u2019t she take the cologne? And what if he has a blood pressure attack?\u00a0<\/em>My brain wanted to take the smell of my father with me, because I didn\u2019t know what would happen next, and I wanted to have that smell with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ALISA MINASYAN VISITED Samuel\u2019s grave on Saturday\u2014the day after she buried him\u2014in accordance with Armenian tradition. When his body was first brought home from the morgue, she remembered his burial instructions: \u201cListen, if something happens to me, take my body to my village. Don\u2019t even think about burying me here in Stepanakert.\u201d He didn\u2019t want his burial site to be lost to Azerbaijani vandalism\u2014what the couple suspected had become of the graves of Alisa\u2019s brother and father\u2014and figured it would be safer in Khnapat than in the city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo we buried him in Khnapat,\u201d Alisa said. \u201cThe Azerbaijani troops were observing the whole affair from a hilltop while we held the funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>Shoghik Mirzoyan had been in the dark about Eric\u2019s whereabouts ever since he was called up on the first day of the invasion. Said Shoghik, \u201cWithout communication with Eric, not knowing what had happened to him, I was like a half-person.\u201d On Sunday, however, he finally showed up, \u201cand I felt a wave of relief coming over me like I had never felt before.\u201d By then Shoghik\u2019s mother and numerous other relatives had joined her, chickens and flour in tow, and Eric\u2019s arrival from the front lent the whole house a curiously festive atmosphere, all things considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric, however, couldn\u2019t stay long. The army communications department, where he served, was among the last units to wrap up its work. Having endured the invasion without becoming a widow, Shoghik dreaded to bid him farewell once more. The upside was that Eric\u2019s commanding officer started handing out fuel rations to his charges from the military\u2019s own reserves: five liters for each man at first, and when there was some left over, he rationed out still more. Eric would hand over his rations to his sister-in-law, whose brother had died, and would have to scrounge more fuel when it came time to depart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Partly to pass the time and partly just because, \u201cI started cleaning the house,\u201d Shoghik recalled. \u201cMy father-in-law always liked an orderly house, and so we started brooming, washing the windows, putting things away, so it was all neat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ON SUNDAY, ALISA Minasyan saw that buses had begun to depart for Armenia. \u201cBut we were told that families with private cars should wait to leave the following day\u201d\u2014meaning, on Monday. Meanwhile, the newly widowed mother of two spent the day hurriedly packing. \u201cThe only thing that came to my mind was our documents and some money I had,\u201d she said. \u201cNow that I have a calmer brain, I keep thinking, \u2018I could have taken this, I wish I had taken that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE DANIELYAN FAMILY departed Martuni that Sunday morning. Said Naira, \u201cNow I look back, and I discuss it with my husband, and I say, \u2018Who told us to leave?\u2019 It wasn\u2019t a decision we made. It was decided for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sept. 25, 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>By Monday morning, Raisa Aghabekyan had reconciled herself to the reality of exile. \u201cBut there was no petrol,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then we heard that there was petrol at this underground fuel depot in Berkadzor,\u201d about four miles outside Stepanakert. She headed for the depot in the evening, as did her elder brother, Grigory. A huge group, mostly men, had lined up for the fuel depot. It seemed hopeless, but then some friends of her younger brother noticed Raisa\u2014\u201cand because I was a woman, they didn\u2019t let me wait in line, but pushed me forward, and I was able to get two full cans of petrol in a matter of minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stepping away from the crowd triumphantly, Raisa spotted Grigory waiting in line for fuel for his family. \u201cThen I called him and said, half-jokingly, \u2018Well, I was a woman, so they let me jump the line, but I doubt they\u2019d do the same for you.\u2019 I could see him smile at that. And that was the last time I ever spoke to him.\u201d As she turned away from the line, the depot exploded into a huge ball of fire and light that for an instant lit up the night sky and the surrounding settlement. Raisa felt a blast of heat on her neck, and the shockwave hurled her forward. But she was OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was a second explosion,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI was screaming, calling my brother, hoping he could follow my voice out of the firestorm.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The surviving bystanders, Raisa included, began splashing muddy water from the ground at the burn victims who stumbled out of the fire. \u201cThe first few who could get away, we were tearing their clothes off and putting them into cars. They were vomiting blood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually ambulances and emergency workers were able to approach the site. \u201cFrom the peripheries they were able to rescue some people,\u201d Raisa said. \u201cBut they weren\u2019t able to get to the center, because the fire was like a tornado, just rolling around and swallowing everything. Grigory was in the center.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The republic\u2019s authorities blamed \u201cviolation of safety rules,\u201d while many ordinary Armenians to this day blame a deliberate Azerbaijani attack. Even if the Baku regime didn\u2019t directly cause the explosion, it remains responsible for having created conditions that forced hundreds of desperate people to crowd a fuel depot. The official fatality count eventually reached 218, with more than 100 wounded, most severely; 21 people remain missing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was realizing the reality that my brother definitely is not alive,\u201d Raisa recalled. \u201cOf course, in that kind of situation, you want to hope otherwise. The desire to see him again was strong. But I needed to realize how serious the situation was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n YANA DAFTYAN RECEIVED word Monday morning that her brother had been released from captivity. As soon as the happy news came, she and her parents decided to leave. \u201cWe bundled up what we could. I had three violins, and I left them behind. And even the national costumes of the dance group, I left those, too, bitterly, because there was no room. Of course, it was kind of a treasure for us. We wore those costumes with pride in presenting the culture of Artsakh. It pains me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The only sentimental object Yana took with her was a fistful of Artsakh\u2019s soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe left in three cars,\u201d she said. \u201cMy uncle, brother, and cousin each drove one of the cars.\u201d The same day, they reached the checkpoint at Hakari Bridge. The name of the bridge, which passes through the Lachin Corridor, had become a synonym for fear among the Armenians. Word was that the Azerbaijanis inspected every car, interrogating military-aged men whom they suspected of having served as combatants in the various Karabakh wars over the previous three decades. There was also, supposedly, a list of senior Armenian fighters whom the security forces had vowed to detain, to be interrogated and tried in Azerbaijan in proceedings where the defendants were almost certain to be denied due process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As they approached the checkpoint, Yana imagined worst-case scenarios. \u201cUntil the last minute you keep thinking: Will they allow you to pass?<\/em> But they just waved us through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n ALISA AND HER children left Stepanakert on Monday morning, with her son, Armen, in the driver\u2019s seat. \u201cIt\u2019s a hell of a drive from Karabakh,\u201d Alisa said. But Samuel had taught him well. Not just driving, but how to repair the Opel clunker should it break down. \u201cIt\u2019s as if my husband knew he was bound to be separated from us for good, and so he trained my son to fill his shoes when the time came. The following day, the Minasyans safely reached Armenia, and by that evening they had arrived at the resort town of Dilijan, where they remain settled to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE DANIELYAN FAMILY also reached the Hakari Bridge on Monday. \u201cWe were very worried,\u201d she recalled, \u201cbecause people had had different experiences. Some had the car fully checked. Others had to step out of the car. And still others had to go through an X-ray.\u201d Naira had managed to persuade her husband to throw away his set of souvenir knives\u2014\u201ca small thing can become a big thing,\u201d she had warned him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut I must say honestly, the bridge passage was easy for us,\u201d Naira said. \u201cThe soldiers greeted us with water and asked if there was a child in the car. When we answered, \u2018Yes,\u2019 they gave us some sweets. We only had eight liters of petrol left. The Azerbaijanis also offered fuel, but it was diesel, so we didn\u2019t use it. I told my husband, \u2018Forget their damned fuel. If we just cross into Armenia, we can make it from there. Our own people will push the car if necessary.\u2019\u201d A few days later, they reached Dilijan, where they would also make their new home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n JEMMA MARABYAN\u2019S DAUGHTER and granddaughter eventually surmised that Jemma and her son had been captured by the Azerbaijani forces. They lodged a complaint with the Red Cross, which transported the mother and son out of Agdam and into Armenia proper via ambulance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sept. 28, 2023.\u00a0<\/strong>Given Eric\u2019s wind-down duties at the army communications department, the Mirzoyan family didn\u2019t decamp for Armenia until the following Thursday, more than a week after the initial invasion. The Mirzoyans didn\u2019t lock the doors to their house before they left. \u201cWe knew that when they enter the houses, the Azeris break the windows and trash everything and post the footage on TikTok. So we said, \u2018Let it be open, so when they come in, and find it open and tidy, they won\u2019t trash it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They left what food they had left for the dog, \u201cso it could survive for as long as possible, and we removed its chain so it could roam and find food elsewhere, if possible.\u201d Tigran was inconsolable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the road, Shoghik recalled, \u201cmy main concern was that my husband might be taken at the [Hakari] bridge. I don\u2019t know what people in general imagine when they say \u2018hell,\u2019 or what they understand when they use this word. But I can tell you that what we went through on the bridge was hell.\u201d Not just her husband, a communications officer in the republic\u2019s army with the rank of captain, but her father was a potential target, as well. \u201cMy father served in the \u201990s war. He was almost certainly on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur family and extended family left in three cars. When we got to the bridge checkpoint, the Azerbaijanis told the men to hand over the family\u2019s passports and to step out of the vehicles. A soldier sat in the front seat of each car and used a phone flashlight to examine the faces of the women and children. He took a kind of pleasure in the power he had over us. My heart felt like it was beating inside my throat. But then they gave water to the kids, and said, \u2018OK, safe travels.\u2019 And at that moment, we knew we would never come back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet the passage brought scant cheer. \u201cIt\u2019s not that you think you\u2019re going to be OK when they let you go. You just realize that you\u2019re lucky that you survived. From this perspective, you feel lucky. But we left so much behind. We left our memories, our childhoods, our land, our graves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n RAISA AGHABEKYAN WAS now ready to leave, but what to do with her brother\u2019s car? Something in the electronic system had gone haywire, and the key fob didn\u2019t work. Eventually, her husband, Ashot, smashed the driver\u2019s side window to grab Grigori\u2019s personal effects; they abandoned the car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOn the last day,\u201d Raisa said, \u201cI told the kids, \u2018You can do anything you want in the house. So they started pillow fighting with abandon. And they pushed their bicycles down a hill, because they didn\u2019t want the Azeris to get their hands on them. So the kids would make a mess.\u201d But her mother, Angela, couldn\u2019t abide leaving a messy house, \u201cso the kids would make a mess, but still Mother would run after them and clean up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was time to hit the road, but Angela, 68, refused to come along. She remained certain that Grigory was still alive, and someone had to stay back in case he returned home. \u201cWe will find Grigory,\u201d the old woman kept saying. Eventually, the family managed to convince her to take one of the very last buses out of Artsakh. Among the few possessions she carried along was Sasun\u2019s small gravestone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raisa and her immediate family left by car. She recalled: \u201cThe kids were stressed, saying, \u2018They will catch us on the bridge.\u2019 I tried to calm them down and distract them, telling them, \u2018Look, there will be well-stocked shops where we\u2019re going. We can buy you whatever candy you want. Make a list of what you want.\u2019\u201d That evening, they reached Goris, inside Armenia proper, and the following day, they arrived in Artashat before settling just outside Yerevan, the Armenian capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n he spiritual heartland of the Armenian people\u2014where their alphabet was developed, where the steeples of ancient churches and monasteries vouch for their indigeneity, and where they had retained sovereignty through long centuries, even as they lost it elsewhere\u2014is now all but devoid of Armenians. The sturdy Karabakhi Armenians are exiled, likely never to return to their ancestral land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cArtsakh\u201d is now a collective memory shared by the 100,000 or so Armenians forced out of their homes by a starvation blockade followed by an invasion. The material condition of the exiles is, for the most part, poor, though those belonging to the professional classes, like the Danielyans, have fared better. By contrast, Jemma Marabyan, the captive grandmother abused for p.r. purposes by the Azerbaijani military, and her family barely eke out a living in a ramshackle house in a village on the outskirts of Yerevan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With their finances, social context, and sense of purpose disrupted, many feel as if they are inhabiting an in-between stage of life with no end in sight. The children have an especially hard time, since they had been accustomed to Karabakh\u2019s dense networks of kinship and friendship. When he watches videos of parachutes on YouTube, 3-year-old Sergei Mirzoyan says, \u201cWe will take one of these back to Stepanakert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alisa Minasyan isn\u2019t sure if she wants to return. \u201cI have traumas and losses associated with Artsakh,\u201d she said. \u201cOn the other hand, I want to go back\u2014because we have the graves there.\u201d For Raisa Aghabekyan, it\u2019s the compounded losses\u2014two brothers and two houses, one in Shushi and the other in Stepanakert\u2014that sting the most: \u201cWe had a nice house in Shushi. We had renovated it, furnished it brand-new. And then we started a new life in Stepanakert. We renovated that house and furnished it. Then we lost that one, too. We are in a situation where the blood doesn\u2019t dry. It never ends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yana Daftyan, however, is back to singing with the troupe \u201cWe and Our Mountains,\u201d now reunited in Yerevan. They meet for regular recitals at a martial-arts studio and are preparing to re-enter the festival scene, notwithstanding scant funding and their disrupted lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t think the group could survive, that we could do it again. But everybody comes here. We are all reunited here. As long as we keep at it, we will preserve the culture and the dialect and everything connected with Artsakh. It gives us a kind of power.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n But, she adds, \u201cevery night, I dream of Artsakh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Section-4-Photo-Nairna--815x1024.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Section-2-Photo-Alisa-3-681x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Section-6-photo-yana-s-hands--1024x681.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Section-7-photo-Shoghik--681x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Section-3-Photo-Jemma-2.jpg\")
\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Section-1-Photo-Raisa--681x1024.jpg\"){kind=spacer}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Section-8-photo-Angela-Arsyan-.jpg\")