Thievery Corporation - The Richest Man In Babylon
Wherever you are in the Caucasus you will be impressed by the many different cultural things. The countries and regions are quite small while the culture is so versatile. One reason are the high mountains that made it impossible to stay in contact with other regions in winter time the other one is the location at the border of Europe and Asia. The result is a fragmented region in terms of almost everything. There are different ethnics,
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| Ethnics in the Caucasus; image source |
languages, religions, architecture due to influences from Persia, Russia and the Ottomans. As a sad side effect there are also several different conflicts.
The current political situation is extremely complicated and in my opinion also a result of the way the people in the Caucasus think about each other. This behavior reminds me of my impressions from the Balkans. To get an overview about the Caucasus conflicts we start with this map that shows the current political situation and the influences:
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| modified from this image |
Abkhazia split from Georgia after a war that was won with the help of Russia. The origins of this conflict are mainly repressions during the soviet time. This point is very important because this affects so many conflicts in former soviet states. It was the usual way for Stalin to suppress people by either killing them, deporting them or by integrating regions that wanted independence into other soviet republics. In this case the Abkhaz SSR was downgraded in 1931 to an ASSR withing the Georgian SSR. (The Soviet Union (USSR) consisted of SSRs which where like US states inside the USA and had the right to leave the union. The ASSRs were the next level below with autonomous rights within a SSR, the AOs were a level below an ASSR with less autonomous rights within a SSR.) Later on the different republics often repressed their minorities while the central soviet government accepted this more or less. The Abkhaz-Georgian conflict resulted in a war ending in a massacre.
Note for travelers: It is possible to go to Abkhazia from Georgia as foreigner. One only needs to contact the Abkhaz foreign ministry via email. Send them a copy of your passport and the date you want to enter. The Georgian authorities doesn't like that but well, they say Abkhazia is part of their country and they therefore cannot forbid you to just visit a province of their country. I tried to go there as as well and even had my permission papers but eventually did not have the time to go there. It was nevertheless fun to fight with the lady in the foreign ministry against her "Soviet service": All replies in a harsh tone without any hello, thanks, dear Mr. or anything standard politeness. I had the feeling that I was not really welcome. After a dozen mails we got in closer contact and it is really sad that I could not meet her personally to talk in Sukhumi. I see now that the website of the ministry is in a much better shape with all the information. So it seems my fight helped.
South Ossetia became also a de-facto independent republic with Russian help. I tried to find out more about the origins and reactions of Georgia against the Ossetians but nobody could explain this. It is hard to understand why they did not simply accept South Ossetia as autonomous region within Georgia as the Ossetians requested. Instead, this war and this war later it is now impossible to cross the border from Georgia to South Ossetia and vice versa. Families are split, many people lost their houses and some even their lives. As a stranger I often asked people for what this was worth it. It is astonishing that so many don't recognize the stupidity of killing each other instead of trying to live together. As I once wrote:
What is really important in life to fight for?
To be loved, having enough to eat and drink, having a family and children, having a place to live, having a job, earning enough money to pay the food and the flat, that all children get a good education and that everybody in the society gets a perspective.
I spoke to many former soldiers, not only in the Caucasus region, and nobody fought for these important things. I heard things about honor, patriotism etc. while they are still living in poor houses, many without a job and their children don't have perspectives for a good future. This frustration often leads to more wars about nothing essential. This is the second important point to keep in mind.
The conflict about Nagorno-Karabakh (often called Artsakh) is a conflict that will most probably cause another war since many countries are involved. To explain this, one needs at first to have a look at the history of Armenia and especially in the one of Artsakh. The former main city Shusha, once one of the largest cities in the Caucasus was destroyed during a massacre at the Armenian inhabitants. The rest of the region remained populated by Armenians (more than 90%). When the Soviet republics were created Nakhichevan was included as ASSR to the Azerbaijan SSR as exclave while Artsakh was not included to the Armenian SSR. It was made an AO inside the Azeri SSR. The decision to keep a corridor of only 5 km outside Artsakh made it an exclave. (I have been there and it is crazy what constructs people create at office desks. I have no other explanation than that they had never been there before the creation.)
What followed were repressive times for the Armenians with things like no Armenian textbooks in schools etc.. The fraction of Armenian population in Artsakh reduced down to 75% (and in Nakhichevan from about 20% to almost zero). In 1988 the Armenians demanded Artsakh to be integrated to their SSR which was refused by the soviet supreme court. The Armenians continued their demands and the results were pogroms like the one in Baku and the Soviet central government intervened in Baku. It is important to remember that that time the iron curtain was not yet fallen and the Soviet union seemed to be in full power. But obviously it already begun to dissolve. A long war followed with the result that the Armenians gained control of most of the Artsakh region and the corridor.
I wrote that there will be another war. Now the arrows in the graphic above come into play. Azerbaijan is a rich country thanks to their natural gas. Azerbaijan sells it to Turkey and Georgia (there is a pipeline crossing Georgia); violet arrows. Russia supports Armenia (besides Ossetia and Abkhazia) with weapons and also with money and economic treaties; blue arrows. But Russia also sells weapons to Azerbaijan; red arrow. As long as the Russians are supporting Armenia Azerbaijan won't win a war. Therefore Russia has a strong control over Armenia. If Armenia is not doing what Russia wants they risk a war and most probably loosing this war since the Azeri military budget is greater than the whole budget of the Armenian state. Moreover Armenia would like to annul the Treaty of Kars that gave the Kars region to Turkey. The Turkish-Armenian border is closed for almost 100 years. Attempts to open it are blocked by Azerbaijan. They can argue to deliver less gas or to sell it otherwise. On the other hand Azerbaijan needs the money from Turkey and Nakhichevan can only be reached either via Iran or from Turkey via this small corridor. Another aspect is that the Turks are Muslims like the Azeris. But wait, the Azeris are muslims? During the 70 years of Soviet union religion did not play a role. Therefore the situation is like in most former socialist countries that only a minority is really religious. In Azerbaijan only about 20% say that religion plays an important role in their life.
The question is why does Azerbaijan want another war? In fact it is rich but the people there are still poor. Only the clan around President Aliyev benefits from the money. I met in Armenia a journalist from Latvia who just came from Azerbaijan and what he reported is what one can expect from such an economy:
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| Export trading map from 2009; image source |
The money is not invested to help the country. In contrary, Baku is rebuild with skyscrapers where the majority still has to live like in Soviet times. As dictator it is important to have a conflict outside your reign. If people making trouble because of a high unemployment rate etc. you can always argue that this is all only because of the evil neighbor. This method is simple and is proven to work very well by dictators/kings etc. for thousands of years. Instead of buying weapons and building skyscrapers one could build many nice apartment houses for workers, modernize and build up industry, renovate schools etc. But nothing seems to happen.
I now left my objectivity not because I had to scream when I saw the recent fights at the Artsakh border in the news. I tried to enter Azerbaijan before I entered Armenia but was treated like an agent provocateur despite that I did not know anything about the conflicts that time. Since the beginning of 2015 it was no longer possible to simply enter the country as tourist. They told me that I am not allowed to move freely in the country, only in Baku. In Baku however, one cannot go to a hotel one likes. They gave me a list of allowed hotels. I had a look in the Internet and there was no allowed hotel with prices less than 120$ the night. Incredible because the normal prices were about 50$. I also asked if it is possible to travel from Baku to Armenia - a bad mistake. I was threatened that I won't be allowed to enter Azerbaijan if I enter Armenia first (the Armenians don't care if you were in Azerbaijan at first) and if I visit Artsakh I will be banned for lifetime. What the hell!
It might be that now, over a year later, things have changed but how frightened must the dictator be that traveling around the country is not allowed for normal tourists.
What makes me really sad is that the brave Azeris have to suffer the most and that their sons are dying in a conflict that don't change their daily life to a better one.
At last I want to point out that I am not on the Armenian side. I am on no one's side. My point is to stop killing. Let people life like they want, don't look back to see what happened in the past. Past is past and you live now. Fight instead for a better life with a job and good education for your children. Fight against dictators and corruption! Armenia as country is by the way the most corrupt country I have ever been.
A solution could be so easy: Azerbaijan accepts that Artsakh and the corridor is part of Armenia and Artsakh gives the region of Agdam back to Azerbaijan. This would avoid to move people around again (which would only cause more frustration) and with an open border it would be possible for everyone to go to places where his family lived in the past. This worked with western Poland/eastern Germany and now we are even together in a political union. Revenge only lead to counter revenge. One needs to stop this!
There are other conflicts in the Caucasus. Remember for example the first and second war of Russia against Chechnya. The Ingushs and the Chechens suffered from genocides during the Stalin era. After the dissolve of the Soviet Union tensions between the different ethnics in the north Caucasus resulted in violence. The list of clashes shows that there is no end of violence insight.
