shushi

During the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh Shushi had a major significance. Geographically it lays in the mountains atop of the capitol Stepanakert and for the longest time of the war it was in the hands of Azeri forces. They could shoot down from the hill onto Stepanekert and destroyed very much of the infrastructure. The decision towards the Armenian forces fell basicly after Shushi was conquered by the pro-armenian forces. And then the christian Armenians stroke back with vengeance, destroying the mosques, killing and casting out the azeri population. There must have been scenes like in the Balkan during the war. Neighbours killing eachother, just because the policy of the rulers had changed. There are still many signs of the war. Burned cars, ruins and there are scarcely seen any people. Whole living complexes look like skeletons and are uninhabited. Basicly it is like a huge walkthrough cemetary. It is quite calm and one is kind of afraid to step on a bomb or even to talk with the people, which is quite stupid. I was really happy to get in touch with one of the workers of a construction site, which broke the ice a littlebit.
They were rebuilding one of the houses with Armenian money. And he pretty much brought it to the point: He was ordered to do a job here and he is happy about it. He doesn´t care about the politics. I think people in crisis areas are really pragmatical about their situation and try to do the best out of it. I was happy to speak with him, because you kind of get the feeling it is a wartime themepark. But of course foreigners are very rarely seen in this part of the world. There are traces of hope considering the effort to rebuild some of the sights with Armenian money and i had the feeling that the locals are quite happy to see foreign faces to tell them about their situation.
This situation could change quite quickl

Photographer:

wil6ka

Uploaded:

2007-11-09

Albums:

Cross / Lomo/ International

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