FLINT
THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION
Sunday, November 20, 2005
By Carol Azizian
cazizian@flintjournal.com • 810.766.6245
Sitting under fig and pomegranate trees in a garden in Nagorno Karabagh, we listen to a trio playing Armenian folk songs and munch on lavash, a flat bread filled with 20 herbs; roasted peppers; pork kebabs; and figs the size of apples.
Nestled in this idyllic setting – a garden in the museum/19th century home of an Armenian patriot – we don’t see the poverty just outside its walls.
The Nagorno Karabagh Republic (also known as Artsakh), with a population under 200,000, is a lush, mountainous region with fast-flowing rivers, deep canyons and picturesque valleys. From Yerevan, Armenia, it’s a six- or seven-hour journey by bus.
One of Armenia’s ancient provinces, Karabagh was the center of a military conflict between Armenians and Azeris in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Ruins of buildings bombed during the war are interspersed with new construction in a town called Shushi (not sushi).
Now inhabited mostly by Armenians, Karabagh is rising from the ashes with a beautiful, white stone church (built in the mid-1800s) in the heart of Shushi; a spartan, but modern hotel with hot water and a restaurant that serves tasty fare such as stuffed grape leaves; Internet cafes and a Western-style supermarket in the nearby capital city of Stepanakert.
Inside Shushi’s stone church is a small, circular confessional room. Visitors are encouraged to stand in the center and listen to their voices reverberate or “reach the heavens.”
A museum dedicated to the “martyrs” of the war houses garments that belonged to a bride and groom who went off to fight before their wedding day and never returned.
It’s an area rich in marble (evident in the bathrooms of finer restaurants and hotels), mulberry jam, vodka and all kinds of produce.
In Stepanakert’s Artsakh State Museum, there’s an assortment of artifacts, geological specimens and modern relics from World War II as well as from the past decade, including a handmade wooden gun used in the recent war.
In a small carpet factory, you can watch women working on large looms, making rugs that are shipped to the United States and elsewhere.
A bus trip to the Gandzasar (meaning treasure mountain) Monastery feels like a journey to the end of the Earth. Situated at the top of a mountain, it overlooks a sea of green forests.
Built in the early 13th century, the monastery reputedly is the location of a shrine that contained the skull of St. John the Baptist, which had been brought here from Palestine during the Crusades.
The monastery was bombarded by the Azeris during the war and you still can see holes in the exterior walls. The priest here is a good storyteller who relates the trials and miracles he experienced during those years.
Before you leave, be sure to buy a bottle of honey from the priest’s wife – it’s gathered from honeycombs on the premises. And the money goes to support the monastery.
Yorumlar kapatıldı.