Armenia: Living on the Edge
Images of refugees settled in border areas of Armenia.
Men working at the cemetery in the town of Dastakert, where 70 per cent of residents are refugees from Baku, Sumgait and Kirovabad in Azerbaijan. They are eagerly awaiting the reopening of the local copper plant in Dastakert, which despite its detrimental effect on the environment promises much-needed jobs. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Abandoned homes in the town of Dastakert are Alik’s playground. His parents are refugees from Azerbaijan. Originally, 4,000 people lived in Dastakert, but today there are only 320 left, most of them refugees. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
At the Hovhannisyans’ family home in Shatvan. Refugees from Azerbaijan, they are unable to repay a 1,000 US dollar bank loan they took out to buy seed for planting. A dry spell destroyed the crop and the cow used as collateral died. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
In the village of Tretuk, a home once owned by an Azeri family has been inhabited by Grisha, his wife and their seven children since they moved to Armenia from Kirovabad. Grisha cannot find work and the family lives on government subsidies. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Janeta serves coffee at her home in Shatvan. Refugees from Azerbaijan, Janeta and her ten-member family are barely able to make ends meet. Janeta cleans out cow dung from neighbours’ barns for which she earns eight dollars. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
The Hovhannisyan children have not had a birthday celebration in years as the family cannot afford it. The mostly live on soup, with meat a rare luxury. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Veronica with her son Vitalik. Veronica moved to Tretuk from Sumgait when she was 14. She is a single mother with two boys, who live in an orphanage for most of the year because she is unable to care for them. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
At the Hovhannisyans’ family home in Shatvan. Refugees from Azerbaijan, they are unable to repay a 1,000 US dollar bank loan they took out to buy seed to plant. The bank is in the process of taking the house. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
The Der Grigoryan family, although not refugees, are among the poorest in the village of Jaghatsadzor. They struggle to survive alongside their refugee neighbours. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Vera Mejlumyan and her family fled from the town of Shahumian in Azerbaijan to Jaghatsadzor in the late 1980s. Unable to find work in the village, Vera has decided to leave for Russia. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Gevork, 21, at home in Tretuk village. He lost his arm in a firefight with Azeri forces while patrolling the border. At the hospital, he fell in love with his nurse but her parents have banned the relationship because of Gevork’s disability. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Four of Grisha’s seven children in the bedroom where all nine family members sleep, warmed by a wood-burning stove. They live in a home abandoned by an Azeri family. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Before the authorities stepped in to help, the Der Grigoryan familly in Jaghatsadzor was planning to keep the children out of school because they could not afford proper clothes. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
In the village of Kut, Benyamin Balassanyan, 9 (first from left) collects metal from abandoned homes and sells it to buy clothes for his brother Davit, 7, who is ill and in need of warm clothing. The Balassanyan family are refugees from Azerbaijan. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Zoya Gevorgyan is local government chief in Shatjrek. A refugee from Azerbaijan. “It’s tough being a female mayor because you think with your heart and soul, just like a mother,” she says. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Zhakhar, the village veterinarian, jumps into a truck which doubles as a hearse for funerals in Dastakert. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Robert Khachatryan, 69, rummages through a garbage heap in Metz Masrik searching for items he can burn for cooking and heating at home. He is originally from Aygestan in Azerbaijan. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Robert Khachtryan's granddaughter Zhenya, 13, at home with an eye infection in the village of Metz Masrik. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Lilit at home in Dastakert. Her father Roudik moved to Dastakert from Baku 23 years ago. To help her family get by, Lilit works in a neighbour's field picking berries and harvesting grass for animal forage. She dreams of leaving the small town and moving to Armenia’s capital Yerevan. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Vladimir Gabrielyan was 75 when he passed away. He and his wife Raisa are refugees from Baku who moved to Dastakart during the Karabakh war. Vladimir worked at a medical equipment in Dastakert until it closed down. They had no children. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) 
Vladimir Gabrielyan’s final resting place in the hills above Dastakert. He and his wife Raisa moved to Dastakert from Baku during the Karabakh war. (Photo: Sara Anjargolian) Many of the Armenians displaced from Azerbaijan by conflict beginning in 1988 found themselves living around the edges of their new homeland.
These images show the daily realities facing refugee families living in frontier areas around Armenia.
Over one million people from Armenia and Azerbaijan were forced to leave their homes, including some 360,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan. The latter typically lived in large urban centres in Azerbaijan - Baku, Sumgait and Kirovabad, so taking up village life was a major adjustment.
Two decades on, the refugees still rank among the poorest people in Armenian society. The remote rural areas where they live offer little in the way of employment, welfare or healthcare.
The pictures show villages in the Gegharkunik region, close to Azerbaijan. The one exception is Dastakert, located in the Syunik region close to Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani exclave southwest of Armenia.
Sara Anjargolian is a documentary photographer, journalist, and lawyer.
