By Brandon Balayan
“Are all of us Armenian here?” questioned the senior policeman as we were standing on the grounds of a Muslim cemetery, with a few hundred tombstones of Karapapaks, who in the 1980s fled to Azerbaijan.
My friends and I decided to visit Arpi Lich, the second largest lake in Armenia, located in Shirak, Armenia’s northwest province, bordering Turkey and Georgia. On the way there, we stopped to visit this cemetery in the town of Amasia, because a CivilNet article said it was well-preserved.
Until 1988, there were Azerbaijanis living in various regions of Armenia. In some villages, their cemeteries remain protected by local Armenians.
Within 10 minutes of studying weathered tombstones, two policemen from the village approached us, and began to question who we were and why we were there – why we would care about a place like this.
The senior officer scanned our faces and clocked in on my evil eye necklace – which isn’t commonly worn by eastern Armenians. It was evident by where we were standing, his stare and his line of questioning that he was suspicious of whether or not we were Turks.
He became less suspicious when I told him my name was Tigran – the middle name my parents gave me which has no practical use unless in moments like these.
“What are you all doing here? What business do you have here?” asked the policeman.
Given the tense reality of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, and the still-closed Armenia-Turkey border, anyone would be suspicious. I could not process any other reason other than it being an interesting place to visit. To put it simply, the gravestones are beautiful, the gravesites and their surroundings are well-kept, and the villagers presumably do not let anybody vandalize the tombstones.
To answer the policeman’s question, I plainly answered, “Because it’s an interesting place.” In retrospect, it was not the smartest answer I could have given since they were already suspecting we were Turks.
We were a group of six, and two of us studied history in university, so we used that as our saving grace as “a reason” we would be interested. They seemingly understood, without questioning why the rest of us non-historians would be interested in such a place.
They then asked for our passports.
“Have we broken a law?” one of us asked.
“No, no. You haven’t broken any laws. We just need to know who is visiting here,” said the senior policeman.
The younger police officer began to collect our documents.
Three of us gave our identification cards to the officer. Three of us said we did not have them with us, but they could be in the car. The officer then said when we get back to our car he’ll ask for them again.
Out of spite, because he assumed we were Turks, I did not want to give my identification.
“I don’t have my identification,” I said.
The officer paused.
“Ok, no worries. Safe travels,” he said.
While back on the road to Arpi Lich the driver mentioned that some Azerbaijanis visited the graves last year and raised their flag. I called Amasia’s community leader Jemma Harutyunyan to find out if this was the truth.
Harutyunyan said some Azerbaijanis did come last year, but they did not raise a flag. According to her, they were visiting the graves when the police officers arrived and asked for their passports – only to find that they were Russian citizens and sent them on their way. She did not say how many were visiting or if the police officers asked any other questions.
Also, given that Karapapaks – who later became Azerbaijanis – lived in this region, one should assume that some of them would want to visit their ancestors’ graves. However, others with a nationalist political agenda may also want to visit such a place.
My initial frustration and obstinacy with the policeman turned into an understanding of their predicament. They have to protect the cemetery from vandals, but also from those who want to (and in the past have) caused problems.
We continued on our way to Lake Arpi, and came to accept that the tensions at the border are reverberating so strongly as to be felt even in the region furthest from Artsakh.
