Museums and Mines

Day 43 in Stepanakert/Askeron, Nagorno-Karabagh

Today began with a visit to the Karabagh museum which I’d thus far not managed to find. Yesterday we walked past it and decided to do it the next morning. We walked in expecting a room or two with faded wooden frames and ratty carpets. We were surprised. The door opened into a small room with decent carpets and an Armenian girl who greeted us in English. The walls were almost totally covered in pictures. She explained they were for an upcoming exhibition on the Armenian Genocide for the anniversary of it on April 24th. She asked where we were from and explained a bit about “Western Armenia.” I made the faux pas of calling it Turkey.

We continued through about four rooms with various cheesy exhibits including stuffed animals, a few mineral rocks, and old Soviet medals, letters and pictures. A few things were translated into mangled English. We continued upstairs to the more recent parts where pictures of mass demonstrations, labeled only in Russian showed the gathering momentum of the joining of Karabagh to Armenia. In 1923, Stalin severed the predominantly Armenian territory of Karabagh from Armenian proper and attached it to Soviet Azerbaijan as an autonomous region inside Azerbaijan. The seed was planted for ethnic conflict. The story of neighboring Georgia’s war in Abkhazia begins exactly the same.

The Karabagh Soviet (governing council) passed a resolution in 1988 formally asking to be part of Soviet Armenia. It set off a whole chain of events culminating in full scale war and ending in today’s semi-ceasefire. The museum continued displaying a few homemade weapons and maps of some of the fighting. I asked the museum worker, whose English was surprisingly good, what she thought peace would look like. Uncomfortable, she explained Armenia was willing to compromise but Azerbaijan wasn’t. It was a familiar tale. In reality, both sides espouse absolutist claims to the land leaving almost no room for negotiation. Speaking about what diplomats refer to as “facts on the ground,” the most likely will be the return to Azerbaijan of the occupied areas surrounding Karabagh except the Lachin coridor linking Karabagh to Armenia.

Azerbaijan still insists on setting unrealistic preconditions to peace talks, not so dissimilar to those of the Palestinians, namely that Armenia withdraw from the occupied areas around Karabagh and allow all displaced persons to return. This has been rejected by Armenia and the Karabagh authorities.

After writing in the guestbook, I asked about Halo Trust, a British NGO clearning mines and unexploded ordnances from Karabagh. She apparently lived on the same street and showed me on the map (the first map I’ve seen of Stepanakert), where to go. We set out to the market which disappointingly had only the usual consumer goods and food, nothing hand made or unique to the area. From there, it was on to Halo Trust. After a bit of walking and some uncertaintly, a large blue door appeared bearing the name. We walked in and the security guard motioned for us to wait so he could find someone who spoke English.

A message board to the right showed lists of demining teams and a few pictures of them in action as well as anti-personel mines. A shaggy mud-covered dog approached wanting attention. After talking amongst ourselves and shrugging at the Russian language posters, a young Armenian man appeared and asked how he could help us.

“I’m interested in Halo’s operations here and would like to talk to someone.” I started off.

“Ok.” he nodded.

“I’m interested in the progress, how Halo works, and to learn more about the region.”

He reached into his pants for his cell phone and put his hand up signalling us to wait. A voice came from the other end and after a few minutes, he asked if we could come back at 5. Actually planning to leave soon, we looked at each other, and agreed.

“Great, we’ll come back at 5pm” I said.

From there we headed to the university to get lunch and discuss what to do with the next four hours. We’d found a delicious and cheap food stand staffed by old women and intended to go back for a budget lunch. I suggested going to Askeron, on the road to Agdam, which boasted 1.5km of medieval walls. It was 20km away and was basically hte only option other than hanging out in Stepanakert, something we wanted to avoid at all costs. It was agreed.

The taxi stand was at the end of the block and we figured out what the ride should cost. It was 5,000 to Agdam and back including waiting time so a trip 2/3 of the way, and one way, should be 2,000 to 2,500 at the most. The driver wanted 2. What was up with these fair prices? How unusual! Yesterday had been the same.

We were dropped off in the “centrum” which seemed to be a random road with two small kiosks and a parking lot with buses. There were two sections of the walls, the main one in town and the other begining across a small river and heading uphill to a small tower. We opted for the out of town one. Twenty minutes later after negotiating some small gardens, fields and muddy “roads” a group of kids appeared whom we asked. Pointing at the tower, we asked how to get in and after a few confusing moments, they got the idea and began walking with us. What they were doing in the middle of nowhere was hard to imagine.

As they began off the road into a field, we all naturally looked at each other, not sure whether to proceed. Karabagh is still heavily mined and the view from the tower definitely wasn’t worth a literal arm and a leg. Cautiously, we followed in their steps as they went care free. After making it to the top for a great view of the surrounding area, all rural, the boys, no older than 13 headed to the base of the wall to secretly smoke. Quite funny, I thought, as I’d seen boys of the same age smoking in public and in restaurants in town.

Gauging the time, we went back to town and caught a bus back to Stepanakert for 170 dram, or 37 cents, a bit cheaper than the taxi though pricey for a bus! It was back to Halo. We entered again and were told that the man who’d brief us would be here in the next hour. “So it could be in 10 minutes or an hour?” I asked trying to be clear. “Yes” he answered. “Do you have somewhere where we can wait?” I asked, figuring that it’d be better to sit down and rest than wander aimlessly through boring Stepanakert.

He showed us to an office, making clear we couldn’t take any pictures. Maps covered two of the walls from top to bottom, a good 8×10 feet. One was of minefields and the other of UXOs, or unexploded ordnances which include not just mines but cluster bombs, missles, grenades etc. A smaller map showed “Accidents” from 1995 on, meaning Armenians who’d stepped on mines while farming or walking around. A picture of a mangled truck was taped in the top right and a covered body on blood soaked grass in the top left. Against the other wall was wooden shelves filled with anti-tank mines, anti-personel mines, missles, cluster bombs, grenades and more. The room was intense.

A long wooden table sat in the center with swivel chairs, the type conferences and meetings are held at. We set our things down and began inspecting the maps. About 15 minutes later, a man came in and introduced himself as Sergei. He spoke good English and had just gotten off work. He picked up a candy-cane striped pointer and began a briefing which lasted almost an hour and a half.

While the Karabagh war lasted from around 1990 to 1994, Halo Trust had only begun operations in 2000. Previously, the extend of the UXOs wasn’t known and it was until so many accidents occured that they realized the need to begin work in Karabagh. Since then, they’ve cleared 47,000 UXOs, under ten percent of which are actually mines. However, contrary to what the numbers indicate, mines are actually the most dangerous as they are far harder to see, find and clear than regular munitions. All the workers except one are local, having trained 21 days straight for the job with one week of theory and 14 days of practice. Most were locals in need of a steady job. Only a few were for humanitarian or patriotic reasons. Sergei had gotten into it because his older brother started with Halo.

With a yearly budget of only 1.3 million USD, Halo has been remarkably successful. All major and secondary roads and roadsides have been cleared and almost all villages and towns. Few high-priority areas remain and many of the remaining danger zones are on mountains, in forests or near the front line and thus of little humanitarian value and difficult to work in. The other areas are south of Lachin, the scene of heavy fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The UXOs in Karabagh are from both parties.

Sergei went into all the details of Halos operations and occasionally removed mines or bombs from the shelves to show us how they worked, where they deminer could poke them without the danger of them exploding and which were easiest and hardest to clear. While anti-tank mines (AT mines) need pressure of about 180 to 200 kilograms (350lbs or more) to detonate, anti-personel (AP mines) mines need only 15 kilos of pressure to explode. The AP mines contain around 100 grams of explosive, usually only enough to maim. However, though seemingly better than one would imagine, maiming is actually the goal. A dead soldier needs no care, does little to disrupt fighting and ultimately takes only one individual out of combat. A wounded soldier, however, requires care from others and transport out making maiming far more efficient than killing.

He continued on with details on demining techniques, the number of civilians killed in the post-war years and Halo’s progress. After 7 years of work, they estimated that the process would be completed in an additional 4 to 5 more years. Eritrea is the only country to have been completely demined. Would Karabagh be the second I asked? “No, Abkhazia will be next. We are almost finished there except for some remote mountain areas.” he answered. Karabagh would be third. We left the subject of mines and went on to chat about the future of Karabagh.

“Does Karabagh really want independence” I asked “or does it want to join Armenia?”

“Armenia and Karabagh are the same. We are the same people and want to be part of Armenia. Independence is only a political tactic so Armenia is not seen as the aggressor internationally” he answered. Quite impressed, I nodded. Indeed, there are no real plans for Karabagh to become independent. Historically, the Armenian province of Artsakh, it’s an open secret that they plan to rejoin Armenia. Sergei really new his stuff. I explained that my interest came from my future degree in international politics and that I was particularly interested in the Caucasian conflicts like Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Karabagh. We ended with a little small talk about how beautiful Armenian girls are and a few jokes.

After profusely thanking Sergei for his detailed briefing, which we realized had lasted over an hour, we went outside to quickly check out the equipment. While most of the AP mines are cleared by hand, certain situations require machines and they have a massive armoured bulldozer for that.

It was a fantastic day and well worth the extra night in Karabagh. It’s a place I won’t soon forget. Tomorrow I’ll take a morning bus back to Yerevan.