Relief in Karabakh - Part 3 Tigranakert, Shahbulag and Askeran

Classic sites deserve a classic song: Leftfield - Melt

In the main bus station in Stepanakert were images of touristic sites. I saw a castle named Tigranakert and asked how to go there. All the time the taxi drivers wanted to drive me but now they were calm. I had to negotiate with the help of a policemen to go there. The taxis in Artsakh have taximeters and there is usually nothing to negotiate. It took a while until I understood.

At first one drives to the east. The road passes the renewed airport that cannot be opened because Azerbaijan threatened to shoot down aircrafts that try to start and land and countries like Turkey threaten to close the airspace for Armenian aircrafts if the airport is opened.

Artsakh is a small country. There are only about 15 km from Stepanakert to the frontier of the former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous oblast behind the town Askeran. This also a natural frontier and therefore the Karabakh Khanate built there a fortress in form of a wall that blocks the valley.

The main road crossed the main castle complex.

It was a massive castle.

From this part one can the remaining parts of the other side.

 View over the valley.

Of course I could not resist and drove to the other (south-eastern) side. it was hard to find a way even for the taxi driver. It seems that there are no tourists willing to see this. There were also no information plates or any touristic infrastructure.

View from the south-eastern end of the castle.

Until now the taxi driver was relaxed and waited patiently but then he got nervous. When we left Askeran he stopped and told me that I should sit cowered because we will pass the frontier zone and it is very dangerous there. Then he accelerated and hurtled over the street with potholes in full speed. Interestingly this was a more comfortable driving that hitting the ground with low speed at every second pothole. Nevertheless I was frightened. We passed many soldiers and bunkers and now I understood why the taxi drivers were reserved to drive there. All the time there are skirmishes and soldiers die at the front line.

Therefore I cannot understand the tourists who like to visit the ghost town Ağdam! War is not a happening. It is crazy that people are not able to find peace after about 30 years of killing each other even in Soviet times. Ağdam is a symbol for that - a very sad place (and still full of mines). Here are some images how it looked before the war.

Tigranakert is only 5 km away from the frontier line. It was a major city of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia. Today it is an unspectacular archeological site because scientific the excavation started first in 2005 and before the war the Azerbaijan SSR had not much interest in researching Armenian history and some parts that have been found were transported away.

One of the new excavations.

The city of Tigranakert was located here on the hillside above the castle.

The castle I have seen in the bus station was in fact not Tigranakert but the Shahbulag castle right besides the excavations. It was built by the Karabakh Khanate like the Askeran fortress. It was used at outer checkpoint to protect the capital Shushi. After the war the Artsakhs renovated it. This is something that impressed me a lot. I mean after the war most people had no home. Many were displaced and had to start from scratch. I expected them to be angry about the Azeris. But this was not the case. Those who I could speak with were angry that they don't stop fighting but they respect them and their culture. They spend money to rebuild any kind of culture, no matter if it is Azeri or Armenian. And this despite there are still ruins all over Artsakh. It seems that culture is very important for them and is something that must be protected. Later in Shushi I was positively perplexed by this even more.

Perfectly renovated

and definitely worth to be visited.

From this point it looks like a toy castle.

Front side towards the valley.

Below the castle they built a nice place with a spring.
In summer there are even music events.

The renovation and excavations were sponsored by organizations like this one.

View towards the front line. it is behind the ruins.

Also most of the houses up the hill are ruins. However there are still people living there like the man from the museum.

Inside the castle there is a small museum but when we arrived there was nobody. The door of the castle was open so that we could enter. The taxi driver was nervous and checked his watch all the time to stay not unnecessarily long. When we went back to our car an old men came down from the few rebuilt houses and was disappointed that we wanted to leave. He lives there as a shepherd and also as museum guard. The driver convinced me to drive home skipping the museum. He drove back in the same crazy style and when we left the frontier zone he wiped off his sweat from the forehead. Later people were astounded by this, even the soldiers because that time it was calm and the snipers cannot reach the road. A problem is when tourists like to leave the road. But the driver had to fight in the past and made his experiences with war.