Grim Night Life of Azeri Villagers

The menfolk of the Azeri village of Tapqaraqoyunlu gather every evening at the café on the edge of the village - but this is not the end of their working day, it is the beginning.

They cannot work their fields during the day, because their homes are within a kilometre of the frontline where the Nagorny Karabakh conflict froze in 1994, and they must do all that they can under cover of darkness.

All farmers have difficulties, but here those are heightened by the constant danger of being shot by troops on the Armenian side of the line.

“I don’t know. I can’t say exactly how many times the ceasefire has been violated this year. But at least twice a week there is shooting from the Armenian side. Particularly at night,” said Yusif Namazov, a 46-year-old resident.

The men in the café nod, and their talk turns to water. The village gets its drinking water from the Bulaqca well, which is just 150 metres from the Armenian positions.

“We have to go for water only at night, so as not to come under fire from snipers,” said Qafqaz Aliyev, the teacher in the village school.

The same problem frustrates any attempts to grow food.

“Therefore, anyone who decides to plant vegetables, or wheat, has to harvest it at night,” he said.

Efforts to find a solution to the Karabakh problem have failed since the ceasefire 16 years ago. Armenians still control Karabakh itself, which has declared independence, and parts of neighbouring provinces, despite Azerbaijan’s insistence that the land is part of its territory.

Regular meetings between negotiators and mediators have produced no results, leaving the villagers to get on with their lives in uncertain conditions between peace and war.

Maharram Rustamov said that last year he planted grain on a hectare of land, but was unable to harvest it.

“On that side they set fire to wisps of straw, and the wind carried the fire into the field. That way we lost all the harvest, which we had worked for the whole year. There is no point in calling the fire brigade, since while they made their way from their centre the harvest would have burned completely. And often the firemen are scared to come, since the fields are just a few steps from the ceasefire line,” he said.

At dusk, the men leave the café, and village life starts. The villagers go out into the fields, take their animals to the pastures and go for water.

Yashar Mammadov’s house is the last in the village, and the nearest to the ceasefire line. All of the windows that point towards the Armenian positions are bricked up.

“Last autumn it was like they were firing with a heavy machine gun. They took off the roof of the house completely. But I didn’t repair it, since there’s no point,” he said.

His house is one of many in the village with a shattered roof, and others have bullet scars on the walls that are obviously fresh as well as those that are 16 or 17 years old.

Weddings and wakes are held at the bottom of the village; at a location they call “Impenetrable”, since it is the only place that Armenian gunfire cannot reach. Even here, they are careful to end their gatherings before sunrise. Haji Vidadi, the village mullah, said that bodies must be buried at night, because the cemetery is near the frontline.

“As soon as the Armenian troops see a few people together, they start to shoot at once. People go to the cemetery only at night, and if they can one by one,” he said.

The local school, however, maintains strict hours. The village authorities dug trenches so children can make it to school without being seen by the Armenian forces, and the children say gunfire is not considered a reason for them to leave their lessons.

“There have been a few times when they have shot during the day at lesson times. The teachers tell us to lie on the floor, and we wait for the gunfire to end. Then we get back to our desks and the lesson continues. But one time the shooting took off the roof of the school, and then we did not go to lessons for two days, while the roof was repaired,” said Tamerlan Bakhishkov, 14.

The school struggles to attract teachers to such a dangerous spot, but the villagers themselves are determined to remain in their homes.

“Since the start of the war not one house in the village has become empty, no one wants to leave their home village for a more comfortable life,” said Namazov, before heading off for another night of work.

Sabuhi Mammadli is a journalist from Azadliq newspaper.