Since 2015, the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage has collaborated with artisans and communities in Armenia for the My Armenia Cultural Heritage Tourism Program and the Armenia: Creating Home program at the 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival. We continue to tell stories from the region and the diaspora.
“Losing everything one day”
September 21, 2023: “I just can’t describe what I feel when I go through this,” Mary Asatryan wrote on her Instagram story. She had uploaded a video of a makeshift bomb shelter in Artsakh. Families sat crowded together with nothing but their clothes and a few belongings. “Crying mothers, screaming children, praying grandmothers is all what you see and hear…I wish I was dead instead of witnessing this national disaster.”
Just two days before, Azerbaijan had begun bombing Nagorno-Karabakh—also referred to as Artsakh by Armenians—something the Azerbaijani government called an “anti-terrorist” campaign. After the military killed 200 people with 400 wounded, more than 100,000 Artsakhtsis began a trek to Armenia through the Lachin Corridor, the only road that connects Artsakh to Armenia.
Mary had worked as the assistant to Artsakh’s former human rights ombudsman, documenting human rights violations and cultural heritage destruction. Since the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, she has uploaded photos and videos to her Instagram account about life in Artsakh, driven by the fierce love she has for the land and its people. Armenian Americans, in particular, flocked to her account to receive news about Artsakh, with popular diaspora organizations such as Yerazad Coalition and Miaseen spotlighting her work. Mary posted daily between September 19 and October 3, her final days in Artsakh.
She was among the last to leave.
A month after the September bombing, Mary posted a video to her Instagram of a mountain range in Artsakh. Her caption read, “Artsakh has always been home to Armenians. But now it is emptied of us…We, the children of Artsakh, have now become homeless and heartbroken.”
“Who are we?”
September 24, 2023: “Everybody around is packing…people don’t know when and how they will be able to get out, but they pack their whole life in one suitcase to be ready,” Mary wrote, sharing a video to Instagram of bags and suitcases scattered across the floor of her neighbor’s home. “There is no more painful scene to witness than the de-Armenianization of Artsakh…”
Artsakh, a small piece of land located between Armenia and Azerbaijan, has been part of the Armenian homeland for thousands of years. Yet, its recent history tells a haunting story about what happens to a people when trapped in geopolitical conflict.
Following Azerbaijan’s September 2023 attack, most, if not all, of the Artsakhtsi refugees fled to Armenia. Many Artsakhtsis, including journalist Lika Zakaryan, sought safety in Armenia because they were under the impression that they were considered Armenian citizens—especially those who held Armenian-issued passports from the 1990s. As of late October 2023, the Armenian government created a “temporary protected status” specifically for Armenians displaced from Artsakh.
“A big problem is the identity,” Lika told me over Zoom. “It turned out that we are not citizens of Armenia. Then who are we? It turned out that we are no one. The identity of being [an Artsakhtsi] is erasing somehow. There is no nation of Karabakh.”
Throughout their history, Artsakhtsis have had to fight for the right to their identity. In 1923, the Soviet Union established the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within Azerbaijan’s borders, despite Armenians making up ninety-five percent of the population in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh). Having endured decades of discrimination and Azerbaijani-led pogroms, the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in 1991, sparking a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of the territory. A 1994 Russian-brokered ceasefire left Nagorno-Karabakh de facto independent.
The United Nations never recognized Nagorno-Karabakh’s bid for sovereignty, viewing the territory as part of Azerbaijan—despite Artsakhtsis feeling aligned with Armenian culture.
To solve these difficult questions about identity, Lika believes it’s imperative that Artsakhtsis maintain their cultural heritage and traditions. Now that she’s based in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, she is able to connect with Artsakhtsis who host local gatherings where children can dance together and speak in the Artsakhtsi dialect.
“People don’t feel home [right now],” she says. “That’s why these kinds of gatherings, these kinds of concerts, or even attending a course or cultural event really helps people not to go crazy.”
Transition to Armenia
September 27, 2023: Mary uploaded a photo of her hometown, Stepanakert. “But how to pack our future? How to pack our dreams? How to pack these mountains? How to pack Gandzasar and Amaras? How to pack the great heart and pure soul of these people? How to pack my endless love for [Artsakh]?”
“[The Armenian] government does nothing for us to feel comfortable here,” says Nare, a sixteen-year-old photographer and self-described storyteller. “But the people, they try to help us as much as possible.”
Nare’s aunt currently lives in a house that the owner lent to her while she spends time in the United States. Some Armenian NGOs converted empty schools and office buildings to provide temporary housing for Artsakhtsis who had yet to receive assistance from the government.
As refugees from Artsakh began to pour into Armenia, organizations such as World Central Kitchen and the Armenian General Benevolent Union organized local volunteers in Goris, Yerevan, and Vayk to prepare meals and food kits for Artsakhtsi families.
A Yerevan-based organization, Kooyrigs, launched and operated a shelter in Yerevan for almost two months to support sixty displaced Artsakhtsis. Today, Kooyrigs runs a Housing Renovation Initiative that ensure Artsakhtsis live in secure homes with water and electricity.
With Teach for Armenia, a nonprofit education foundation, Ashot Gabrielyan and his colleagues immediately coordinated emergency efforts to provide social and emotional support for Artsakhtsi children. Since 2020, Ashot worked as a teacher in Artsakh. “But I didn’t expect to teach at one of the hardest times in Artsakh,” he says. “You need to be a good friend of the kids so you can support them during hard times. The kids were going through hell.”
Now that he and his students are spread across Armenia, it is difficult for them to see each other. Ashot and Teach for Armenia organize monthly reunions for these students in Yerevan so they can connect with each other and discuss plans for future educational projects. He also organizes classes to help students learn the Armenian dialect specific to Yerevan so they can better adjust to their surroundings. “We try our best to navigate life with these kinds of reunions and these connections,” Ashot says.
Nana, a soft-spoken Artsakhtsi student, wants people to understand that even though she also views Armenia as her country and is grateful for the support she has received, Armenia can never replace what she lost in Artsakh—especially her home village, Kolkhozashen. Her voice is steady, yet the faraway look in her eyes conveys a quiet sadness palpable through the Zoom video: “When you realize that you are far from home, far from familiar people, it makes you feel really bad.”
“Artsakh isn’t only a conflict”: Keeping Artsakhtsi Culture Alive
“Artsakh has a unique feature,” Mary says. “They are the only ones in probably the whole Armenian world today who have been living uninterruptedly in their homeland. They were able to preserve all their traditions, their dialect, as it always was.” She pauses to gather her thoughts. “Their lifestyle— it’s all now destroyed.”
Artaskhtsis who were displaced to Armenia after the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 have been instrumental in providing a cultural home for the new refugees.
Lika works with the Hadrut Arts Center, which moved to Yerevan after Azerbaijan occupied Hadrut in 2020. The center, operated by Artsakhtsis from Hadrut, provides free classes in painting, traditional embroidery, and dance. Over 400 students attend classes at the center in Yerevan and its sister branches in Artashat, Ashtarak, Masis, and Vanadzor.
Mary particularly worries about preserving traditional Artsakhtsi dishes like zhengyalov hatz, a kind of flatbread stuffed with greens. “[We] can’t find here the exact same herbs because they are grown in the mountains of Artsakh.”
Although some ingredients may not be available, an Artsakhtsi family that moved to Yerevan after the 2020 war opened a restaurant in Yerevan called Taste of Artsakh, where they sell homemade zhengyalov hatz. On their Instagram channel, they proclaim, “We consider it our duty to preserve our national heritage and we have decided to give everyone the opportunity to enjoy the real taste of one of the most delicious dishes.”
Still, Nare says that maintaining her cultural traditions in Armenia is “pretty hard.” What helps her the most is when the Artsakhtsis she knows in Armenia gather to “spend more time with each other, so we just do not forget our dialect and so we do not forget our culture, our traditions.”
Lika recently started a podcast about the Artsakh dialect through the Armenian news organization CivilNet. “The main idea is to preserve people’s stories and the dialect as it is now, because I believe that with time, the dialect will change and [the Eastern Armenian dialect] will affect it,” she says.
After leaving Artsakh in 2023 to attend university in Idaho, an Artsakhtsi student named Shushanik created Instagram and Facebook pages to share words and phrases in the Artsakh dialect. She translates them into standard Armenian, English, and Russian. Although she doesn’t have a background in linguistics, she has enjoyed learning more about the Artsakh dialect, especially the fact that some words have French and Persian etymologies. Like Lika, Shushanik tells me that, “After the war and with the recent exodus, I decided that it is important that the Artsakh dialect is preserved.” After all, she says, “who else is going to do it if not me?”
Now safely in Yerevan, Mary remains engaged in similar heritage preservation work that she performed as the assistant to the human rights ombudsman. “We don’t have the resources to be on the ground [in Artsakh] and protect it, but at least we try to raise awareness and speak to the international organizations and lobby our interests,” she says.
Since 2020, Azerbaijani soldiers have bulldozed graveyards and dismantled churches, wiping Artsakh of its Armenian cultural heritage. For Mary, documenting this destruction is vital because “people suffer from seeing and not being able to do anything from afar.”
Nare, like Mary, understands the power of social media. In a kind of digital historical archive, Nare uploads photos to her Instagram account that feature the smiling faces, lush mountains, and grand monuments that made Artsakh home. “We grew up learning about our place. We grew up feeling the need to protect our land,” Nare explains, which is why her photos focus on places. “It’s very interesting because those places also hold memories. When you watch the photos, they’re not just buildings or streets. They tell you a story.”
Plans for the Future
October 3, 2023: “The last days before my exodus from Artsakh seemed absolutely surreal.” Mary shared a video of a sidewalk in Stepanakert where crowds of Artsakhtsis waited with their belongings for evacuation buses. “It’s an Armenian national tragedy of losing [the] Homeland yet again.”
Mary believes that, even today, Armenians and non-Armenians alike do not understand the significance of what Artsakhtsis lost. “We lost a major part of our identity.”
“[We] are not comfortable anymore, and I’m not sure if we will ever be.” For Lika, though, speaking the Artsakhtsi dialect and preserving cultural traditions are “the only thing that keeps us close to the roots and [helps] us feel a part of something bigger.”
Nare tells me that the bond she has with her culture is stronger than it was before, and she hopes to see Armenians and Artsakhtsis come together as a unified group to reclaim Artsakh. The passion in her voice is perhaps intense for a sixteen-year-old, but for Nare, feeling empowered is a necessary state of being. Without it, she argues, “we wouldn’t be able to go back to Artsakh.”
Mary still posts photos and videos to her Instagram account about Artsakhtsi culture. On December 31, 2024, she shared photos of Christmas decorations around Artsakh. In the caption, she wrote about traditional Artsakhtsi dishes for New Year’s and encouraged her followers to share their own traditional foods in the comments. She also wrote, “Even though Artsakh has been occupied by Azerbaijan for 2 years now, there are traditions which should be preserved and passed on.” Her Instagram page acts as a digital archive, both educating non-Armenians about her background and providing a safe space for Armenians and Artsakhtsis to share memories about Artsakh.
Like Mary, recognizing the importance of storytelling, Nana plans to apply for grants so that she can organize a camp for Artsakhtsi children to share their traditional culture. She hopes to “collect their memories, but in a more creative way, like try to make them draw or to paint.” After gathering this artwork, she wants to create a book of Artsakhtsi memories.
While each person has a unique experience with displacement, the common thread weaving Artsakhtsis together is the hope that they will return to their homeland. One day, Nana hopes to invite people to visit her home in Artsakh. Her eyes glitter with pride at the idea. “It’s a really, really amazing place. It was just a place where everything felt so true.”
Aline Keledjian is a writing intern at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and a recent graduate of the George Washington University with a BA in international affairs and history. In 2020, like many other Armenian diasporans, she remembers watching the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War unfold through photos and videos shared by Artsakhtsis on Instagram. It was like a digital textbook. Through spotlighting Artsakhtsi voices in this article, she hopes to communicate the power of oral and digital history.
