Some personal stories from Armenia and Azerbaijan, drawn from the South Caucasus radio diaries project. These personal stories from Armenia and Azerbaijan are drawn from the South Caucasus radio diaries project, which grew out of a two-year pilot project run by Conciliation Resources with Georgian and Abkhaz journalists. Over 20 radio stations in the South Caucasus now participate, broadcasting stories recorded by ordinary people and edited by local journalists.
My name is Asmik Akopyan and I live in the village of Karabulak. I am 68 years old and a pensioner. I went to medical school as a young woman and in was sent to work in Shusha as a nurse. It was there that I met a handsome young Azeri among my neighbours. We were blessed with a large family β I gave birth to two boys and two girls.
They were clever, good-looking children, all of them went on to higher education. I was very happy. But then in the conflict began. I fell ill, and had to convalesce in Ashkhabad in Turkmenistan. So my son-in-law took me to Ashkhabad, where he had relatives. It was there that I learned from the television that Shusha was now under Armenian control and no Azeris remained in the town.
I lost contact with my family, knowing only that my children had left for Baku. Then I learnt that my mother was ill, and I thought I should go and look after her and wait for this war to end. Thus I came to Karabulak in , but I never expected this situation to go on for so long. I miss my children terribly, and live only for the hope that we will see each other again. There is nothing I want more. In the s I worked as a contract translator at an electricity plant in Nasiriya, Iraq.
This was at the height of the Iran-Iraq war and there were frequent bombardments from Iran. Soviet specialists were not permitted to move about freely, but it fell to me to go once a week from Nasiriya to Basra because the authorities dealing with foreigners and visas were located there. There were a number of Soviet specialists working in Nasiriya, among them Azeris.
