Former Azerbaijani residents return to Aghdam homes
(25 Nov 2020) Former Azerbaijani residents of the war-ravaged ghost town of Aghdam on Wednesday walked in their once-beloved city over a quarter of a century after they were driven out by fighting.
Aghdam and the surrounding region of the same name are the first of several territories adjacent to separatist Nagorno-Karabakh to be turned over under a cease-fire that ended six weeks of intense fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Although regaining Aghdam is a triumph for Azerbaijan, the joy of returning is seared with grief and anger as Azerbaijanis confront its devastation.
"After 27 (years) I have returned to my Aghdam, my joy cannot be expressed by words. However, I couldn't enter my house because of the quantity of land mines placed there," said 61-year-old Zamanova Nacibe, a former resident of the city.
The city of Aghdam was once home to 50,000, known for its white homes and an elaborate three-story teahouse, but it is so ruined that it's sometimes called the "Hiroshima of the Caucasus."
After the population was driven out in 1993 by fighting, they were followed by Armenian pillagers who stripped the city bare, seeking both booty and construction materials.
One of the city's happier eccentricities, the bread museum, is in ruins. The cognac factory is gone.
"We had beautiful buildings, hotels, a governor's building, all the prominent buildings that were here have no trace left behind. It's like it's all destroyed and a magnitude 12 earthquake hit here, unfortunately. This is the state of (Aghdam)," said 63-year-old Arif Haciyev, another former resident.
Today, the only structurally whole building is the mosque; from the top of the elaborately patterned minarets, the view is of a vast expanse of jagged concrete and houses reduced to shells, all encroached upon by a quarter-century's growth of vegetation.
Aghdam was a place many Azerbaijanis felt a special affection for, not least because of its status as the breeding centre for the speedy Karabakh horse which is considered the national animal.
Another bitter yet proud memory of Aghdam also remains — it was the home of the first victims of the region's descent into chaos.
In February 1988, two days after the Nagorno-Karabakh parliament petitioned to link the autonomous region with Soviet Armenia, a group of angry men set off from Aghdam to the regional capital Stepanakert.
Before they got there, they were confronted by police and ethnic Armenian villagers; two of the protesters were shot to death.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That war left not only Nagorno-Karabakh itself but substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.
Heavy fighting that flared up Sept. 27 marked the biggest escalation of the decades-old conflict between the two ex-Soviet nations in over a quarter-century, killing hundreds of people and possibly thousands more.
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