How Georgians, Azeris and Armenians play the drum, performed by an Armenian and uploaded by an Azeri.
My three stages of watching this video:
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Welcome to Nakhchivan, the San Francisco of the Middle East | VICE
As my plane touched down into Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, I half-expected to step out into a crumbling landscape ripped from a still of ‘Enemy at the Gates.’
This article is what one would expect from Vice, I guess. “Even my friends in Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, told me I’d probably be walking out into a wasteland” makes you wonder who his friends are and how much they know about anything, but it’s cute that people are never embarrassed to admit to such ignorance when writing about places no one gives a shit about. And the San Francisco comparison is rather weak. Still an interesting read, made interesting for the fact that virtually nothing is ever written on Nakhchivan in the media (except for Azerbaijani and Armenian but we’ll ignore those for obvious reasons).
Hold up here comes the best story
The first time my grandma got drunk was on May 9, 1945 aka the day World War Two was won, she was on the Solkhoz nearby Shamakhy (Azerbaijan SSR) (that’s the kolkhoz but state owned) and the head of the VinTsekh (Vino-sector), “a nice plump Armenian woman” brought her to the wine cellar and gave her a glass of sweetass vintage wine. And the war was over and everyone celebrated.
That was exactly 68 years ago.
“Atam, Anam ve men. Dad, Mom and Me. Shusha, Karabakh. August 1981” by Murat Gassanly.
The rest of the photo album is here.
Georgians Wrestle With Abortion Issue As Gender Imbalance Grows
TBILISI/PRAGUE — Georgia faces a serious and growing demographic problem. According to the United Nations, the ratio of newborn boys to girls in 1991 was 105 to 100. By 2000, it was nearly 110 to 10…
“Together with its neighbors in the South Caucasus, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Georgia is on a trajectory to develop a gender imbalance on a par with what has been observed in India and China.
According to World Health Organization and UN data from 2005, Georgia has 19.1 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, one of the highest rates in Europe, although in the middle among former Soviet countries. The average woman in Georgia will have three abortions in her lifetime.”
For more on gendercide in the Caucasus:
The Economist: The war on babygirls
Balcani e Caucaso: Gendercide in the South Caucasus
Food feuds continue to simmer in the Caucasus
Your daily reminder that most people are unrelenting idiots.
Ethnic Azeri engagement party, Tazakendi, Georgia © Onnik Krikorian 2013
More at http://www.facebook.com/onewmphoto
Also reblogged for chotai’s tag: #guys look it’s the War-Torn Caucasus
(via chotai)
A little crowdsourcing
Have you ever been to the Caucasus? Would you like to go? Dreams count too. I once flew over Samarkand and Tashkent in a dream and it was one of my better trips.
What are your immediate associations with the region? Fascinations? Preconceptions?
Do you enjoy saying the word as much as I do?
I would really love to know your answers. The Message box is right this way.
Baki müharibesi 2013 #aztagram #instasergi #azerbaijan #baku
A lot of money, a lot of construction going on in Baku.
School No 8. Baku. Last day before summer holidays. About a third of the kids in this picture are Armenian. I’m in the back row, slightly obscured by another kid. The date on the board is May 1987. Within a few months Karabakh conflict will begin. Azerbaijani refugees from Armenia will start arriving in Baku and Sumgait. By February 1988 it will be Armenians fleeing en mass. By the time ceasefire will be signed in May 1994 whole swathes of Azerbaijan, beyond Karabakh will fall under Armenian occupation and all Azeris will be expelled from captured lands. And hundreds of thousands of Armenians will flee their homes in Azerbaijan, driven out in despicable attacks and pogroms from Baku and Sumgait. Armenia will be emptied of Azerbaijanis, and Azerbaijan of Armenians; whilst in Karabakh Azerbaijani population will be systematically driven out and ethnically cleansed in massacres, as will happen in Khojali and my grandmother’s village of Malibeyli in 1992. Then again Azerbaijanis will be no less merciless, both sides will commit horrendous atrocities. Tens of thousands will perish; cities will be reduced to rubble, becoming ghost towns, like my grandfather’s birthplace of Aghdam; over a million will flee their homes. Azerbaijanis and Armenians will be locked for 25 years in a bitter embrace of war. But in May 1987 we were just kids celebrating the end of our first year in school. I think this picture too belongs in the Karabakh album. May all victims of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict rest in peace. And all should be remembered.
