Tanahat: Life in the Armenian mountains
by Tatul Hakobyan
SISIAN, Armenia – A 42-seat bus used to travel more than 500 km (310 mi) daily from the village of Jomartlou in the Sisian region of the Armenian SSR, all the way to Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijani SSR. Jomartlou was a small village of ethnic Azerbaijanis, with a population of about 60 or 70 households in all. The bus passed through the city and region of Sisian, which used to have a dense Azerbaijani population. The world’s most famous Azerbaijani was from Jomartlou. The bus from his native village to Baku used to run on the request of the now deceased Haydar Aliyev.
Mr. Aliyev, leader of Azerbaijan in the Soviet and post-Soviet era, may well have been born in Jomartlou in 1921. His official biography asserts that he was born in Nakhichevan in 1923, right after the Aliyev family had moved to that autonomous republic. Haydar was the third of eight Aliyev children. In an interview in 2000, Haydar’s younger brother Jalal said that the Aliyevs were from the village of Jomartlou, but Haydar was born after the family had moved to Nakhichevan. The media has reported on several occasions that Haydar’s birth date was falsified so that he could avoid serving in World War II.
We spent half a day in Jomartlou with the mayor of Sisian, Lavrent Sarkissian, who knew Haydar’s brother Hasan Aliyev well. According to Mr. Sarkissian, before the Karabakh Movement, Hasan used to visit the mayor’s house in the village of Vorodan. “Hazmat Hayirov, the village head, was a deputy to Armenia’s Supreme Council, I was friends with him, and Hasan used to come to Vorodan often. The Aliyevs’ mother was from Vorodan and their father from Jomartlou. As to where [Haydar] Aliyev was born, I don’t know. They say that Aliyev was born after moving to Nakhichevan,” said Mr. Sarkissian.
Jomartlou was renamed Tanahat after an Armenian monastery from the Middle Ages. The mountainous village lies only a few miles from Nakhichevan. It has only a few residents, and they are ready to leave if the village continues to be ignored by the authorities. Even though Tanahat is only 10 miles away from Sisian, there is no bus service.
When the Azerbaijanis left in 1988, Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan settled in some of the Azerbaijanis’ houses. However, since the conditions were mountainous, the city-based Armenians couldn’t survive more than a few winters and left. Tanahat has good conditions for keeping animals; thus some families from the city of Sisian and other regional villages moved there.
The mayor, Gomed Nercissian said that Tanahat has no future, and in a couple of years there will hardly be any residents left.
“There are only ten families left in the village. They are mainly animal-keepers. There were 35–40 families living in Tanahat after the Azerbaijanis left; then they started to leave because the village has no school. When the children reach an age where they have to go to school, the family moves to Sisian or other villages. The village is far from the main road and the road is closed for a couple of months during winter. The connection with Sisian is very bad,” he said.
Although there are prime conditions for cattle-breeding, Michael Arakelian, who moved to Tanahat from Sisian, has also decided to leave. “It is true that the conditions are good for the animals only, however, there is nothing for the people, absolutely nothing, not even a school,” said Mr. Arakelian.
The villagers complain that the authorities have totally neglected the village and show interest only during elections, although there are only a few dozen voters. In order to be able to go to the city, people have to walk five miles to reach the nearby Tasig village, where there’s a bus service to Sisian.
Yeghish Nazarian also moved to Tanahat from Sisian. “I have three children, but because there’s no school, the children stay here only during the summer. They go to Sisian during the other months and come during the summer. There would be a lot of people if there was a school, and if there were a lot of people, there would also be work. The conditions for cattle-breeding are good, thousands of sheep and cows could be kept like the Azerbaijanis used to do at some point,” he says.
Villages with no future
There are many villages with no future in Armenia. If those villages with no future were not on the border and had no strategic importance, then perhaps one would not feel their loss so acutely. But villages that lie on the border of Azerbaijan are the ones that are slowly dying off, void of villagers and livestock. As such, it is more difficult for our border guards to keep the country’s borders secure. The borders can only be secure with the existence of prosperous villages and working residents.
Gvidon Karamian, 71, moved to Tanahat in 1990 from the village of Brnakot. He complains that there is no machinery and technology in the village and the road is closed during the winter. Tanahat is isolated from the world.
“If they wish to restore the village, then there’s need for care. The frontier villages are subjected to desertion. They only come during the elections – even for only 10 votes. We have written to the regional governor a couple of times; we have asked for housing for the residents. They should at least give them houses. There are only a few families and the houses will collapse upon their heads. When the Azerbaijanis used to live here, Aliyev had supported the village and the Azerbaijanis lived very well. Nobody takes care of the village now,” says Mr. Karamian.
Tanahat is very isolated indeed. If a stranger comes to the village, everyone in the village, including the children instantly gather around. Any stranger’s visit to this village turns into a community event. When I tried to photograph them, the children ran away. Only one child, 5-year-old Barkev, was looking in amazement and smiling.
Summer, 2008
This report first published in THE ARMENIAN REPORTER
