Lomography

nagorno karabakh

Now this is one of the most interesting places i have been so far. That has nothing to do with the amount of sights or entertaining venues, but merely with the political significance of the place and the push of adrenalin, while passing the borders. Nagorno Karabakh is a selfdeclared autonomous republic on the territory of Azerbaijan, but which population is mainly of Armenian ethnics. Karabakh ist he one example for the diversity and the ethnical problems in the Caucasus region. In the building process of the Soviet Union Karabakh was seperated from former Mainland Armenia and given to Azerbaijan. Why Stalin did so is not quite clear, but it was a political decision with major impact. Already shortly before the end of the union ever existing ethnic turmoils eclapsed in riots, which became a real war in the early 90ies of the last century. After a ceasefire between the Armenian and Azeri forces in 1994 Nagorno Karabakh remained under Armenian control but still in the territory of Azerbaijan. It is not accepted by any major international institution and its status is a big question. For travellers like me, visiting the capitol Stepanakert is quite an adventure. We got an invitation for playing a concert so we got our visas without a problem and for free. The sticker for the visa is the funniest I have ever seen. It is handwritten and contains the main local sights as pictures and the flag of Nagorno Karabakh, which likes like a commodore-armenian flag. A triangle in the right side of the flight looks from the eighties with Steps in it. The interesting fact with this visa is that I will not be allowed to enter Azerbaijan now. I will have to get a new passport or to rip out the page with the visa. Stepanakert is a mix of broken soviet style buildings and newly created ones. There is a parliament and few high class business-centers. It is obvious that the government is r