The Blog

Each outbreak of the mentioned atrocities was vigilantly responded to with a mutual outcry in the indignant Europe and unsparing headlines at the leading newspapers.

In the 20-th century the word “massacre” fell out of vogue, gave way to and got replaced with the word “genocide”.

The Armenian genocide in 1915-1923 sums up to 1.5 millions of human lives. And ultimately we come to:

2 500 000 – 1 500 000 – 235 000 = 765 000

Two third of the entire people exterminated or (to put it optimistically) one third survived.

Figures are a fucking effective means of consolation – the skimming shoot of eyes over the long row of zeroes and that’s that, you’re good to live on further. The trick is just not to let the details crack your mental mail of arms by pictures of a mujik sliced with sabers, a baby hoisted on the bayonet, a woman beastly raped and killed and dumped into the same mountain of decomposing bodies.

No. It is not a feverish verbal diarrhea of a wacky blogger, the illustration is taken from the pencil sketches by an eyewitness (they did not travel with cameras yet). Poor Frenchman! Poor Frenchman! What repulsive nightmares he was haunted by in the rest of his life!

Turkey flatly rejects this arithmetic (ask the hotel Manager), yet the obstinate figures are there to show the remainder of one third of survivors (plus those who took Shahada).

Where are they, the un-Islamized part of that third?

Fled to Russia, fled to France, fled to America.

In Russia they would become citizens in the pending USSR, in the West they’d flesh out the Diaspora…

As noted by a European eyewitness of the massacre in 1894, the attackers were distinguished by exceptional cowardice, so if running into resistance they immediately moved along to shoot up, rob, rape, and kill in the next village, which emphasizes the need in phedais-guerrillas-Bandera-men if you want to survive in your native land.

And what were they, those 2.5 millions of Armenians who could not last in their land (albeit provided with phedais of their own)?

I’m gonna put it straight – just mujiks they were. All life long they plowed, harvested, hauled the dung from cow houses out, were digging, hacking, building and from 1555 they clung to the same occupations but already as a part of Turkish Empire (all over one quarter of the then state’s territory were they toiling thru their lives).

Okay, fine, the mujiks also had their own elite: merchants, political figures, shoemakers, writers and composers, however, those were far away, in the capital city of Istanbul. But, on the whole, just mujiks as is they were.

From 1915 to 1923, while the elite were being hanged out on the lampposts in the capital city, the arrangement about mujiks was way simpler – collected in crowds, they were driven to Syria (also a part of the then Ottoman Empire), driven into the desert under the pretext as if some camps were awaiting to accommodate them there. So one million human beings died on that trek because they were driven without any food, shepherded by riflemen.

The guardsmen did not bypass gutting dead womenfolk in case she swallowed her gold earrings while alive. Some were lucky to find. (Armin Theophil Wegner; 1886—1978, another German witness of heinous atrocities.)

Still, what did Turkey need all that trouble for?

Easy as pie – it’s an Empire and any state of that status has no choice but to grow. It exists only while it grows, like those polyps in the Coral Reef.

But behold and see – the neighboring insistent grower, Russian, end 1800’s grabbed ample swathes off the Ottoman Empire. Who else might possibly be guilty of such an affront if not those Armenians? They also worship the Cross.

At the dawn of the next, 20th century, Turkey looses almost all of its possessions in Europe. Who’s guilty again?

For consolidation of any Empire, having an enemy is the must, be it an external or inner one. Such supposition can be exemplified with the Third Reich whose efforts brought the German nation to be consolidated not only by their just pride in their philosophers, composers, and high quality household appliances made in Germany but also the genes-deep feeling of guilt for the Genocide of Jews. Which is, of course, another story, yet the core remains the same – you can’t go on without an enemy and in absence of a sufficient bogey to make us stick together, we’ll invent some covid or another, and draw a useless mask on each and every visage, and subject folks to shitty injections, and any bitch holding off is against us, we’ll shut up their squeaks opposing the holy institutions and wisdom of our rulers…

The Stepanakert phedais' had one noticeable feature in common – their young age, from 16 to about 32. Night after night they kept shooting their AKs against the positions of the other side to the conflict entrenched in Krkjan, the commanding hill in Stepanakert outskirts. There sounded bazooka bums too in that neighborhood connected by a dirt road to Shushi and from there to the rest of Azerbaijan.

When someone got blown up by a mortar fire in his fox-hole, they buried him a day later in the city cemetery – everything was conveniently at hand, in the same blockade…

For me personally, the phedais are –

Mishik, who after the first (unsuccessful) storming of Malubalu Village returned home frozen thru and thru and slept for about 24 hours;

Gavo, my one-time coworker at BMM-8, after a night in Krkjan passed the AK to his shiftman and was coming back home, and winked at me proudly in the sidewalk along Lenin Street;

Samvel, whose wedding pants were shot thru with a bullet in the second (successful) storming of Malubalu yet he never looted a thing there, not a kopeck worth;

Edo (the Draftsman) sporting an obsolete army officer belt-harness.

In the then Stepanakert parlance the appellation “draftsman” was used to designate a person whose eyes in his head watched the world speeding round thru the prism of cannabis smoke because of the characteristic thoughtfulness pervading their countenance and optics in particular, when on high.

Nope, I did not know them closely enough to learn these details first-hand. The short-sighted policy of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR regarding the citizens who did their stretch in the construction battalions of the Soviet Army had not allowed me to acquire the skills needed for operating a Kalashnikov assault rifle, which would somewhat excuse my being non-Armenian and over the age-requirements. However, my wife Satenic was from the same generation with their wives.

True, I’m not sure about Edo’s being married, which does not constitute a too huge problem though – being a “draftsman” he’s always suited to design something.

And easily enough, take my word, bro…

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Bottle #10: ~ The Third Point of View ~

....yep she’s a most complete fool that goofy Minnie is and I always sez it open to her right into her stupid eyes you’re a fool Minnie and they screwed your goofy head on in a completely screwed up way and she just keeps grinning her wacky smile as to show she is being a student in her third year of some or other stupid nothing and please don’t because you don’t need to screw my brains with all that blah-screwed-blah you know as well as I do that a woman needs all that studying no more than a french window in her cunt and let them go and screw themselves together with their whoppers about her way to come to the rudder of such so great enterprise and now been the woman of the year by the Forbes rating let ‘em go and tell those tales to bunnies under the Xmas tree about that business slut dangling her silicon tits oh yeah she’s so cute and stuff and all those faggy pidor couturiers pinch each other on the sly running for the honor to make her pants on their brand line they advertise in turn at Vogue Verdict and don’t you ever try to screw my brains as if it is her education responsible for such a so bright career hers no no no need try next door to push your goods Mr. Salesman I was not born yesterday and this business lady with her cute cunt was lucky to run in right time into a right place to split her fork for a right dick and become the Big Style Cunt of PromGas or whatever is the name of that warehouse that each and every pussy dreams to get to and all day long polish their nails at the polished desk like zombie dolls half dead of boredom as to buy a luxury car please anyone look at me please hey envy my polished Lexus I’m so cute and open to business opportunities but if you ask me I'd better go on moiling myself at that fucking supermarket but stay the master and commander of my cunt and decide who to get laid up with and not go by the leads and orders from Forbes for your stable growth in the corporative career and if they call me a whore behind my back then thank you very much for your ad and free canvassing and the choice of dicks for my pussy now grows expo-nationally yes I am a whore but I am an honest girl for my personal pleasure and not a hooker for a successful career

but this fool this Minnie keeps coaching me ah Maya you should learn something with your pair of legs and a diploma you’ll easily become First Lady as if I need that shit but that stupid fool that Minnie thinks a diploma plus pink iPhone makes you Master of the World and with her goofy bow legs she’ll never grow higher than a secretary to Manager of Housing Maintenance Office to serve him coffee and flesh-out quickie briefings in the doggies way behind the closed doors as if I don’t know how them those chick-students earn their iPhones in the third year but this dick-sucker with her horse teeth keeps it that her iPhone in her green purse that’s a brain-screwed-up nuts for you PINK iPhone in a GREEN purse and only one thing that I could thank the wacko for is her keeping me hang on with her stupid babble in the morning if not for her stupidity I’d miss the pretty guy and pass the Chris’ bench before he was there that manly male in his full beard as I like and not that prickly stubble around their mouths as if he did not wash the snot off his mug for three days no the guy had a real beard which makes you want to dive in and make a nest inside to have a baby there O, I’m such a fool and give out things at times neither here nor there and he looked after me by the bye when I was passing but I had nowhere to hurry today because its the second shift so I took a seat on the two-story house porch they seem like renting it again and the steps are not too trampled over and when he came to whiz onto the wall down there I thought damn it’s a fucking pervert but no he never looked up at me on those steps not a single time and that way I could dig it was Chris the farting geezer to send him over for a gag to tie up his hobby-horse there and when I saw what he was gushing from my legs slid apart all of their own and I thought to myself no Maya no and no I won’t act an unfucked chick with this one and never want any iPhone off him but just do it for my personal pleasure I’d ride this hobby-horse of his raw and no saddle needed

and then fucking Dad popped up from nowhere I never noticed him come but he’s a crazy old cat that’s what for they keep him at You’ll Get It and here you are his baby goggles at another guy’s dick and he punched the macho without any warning with that his mean jab below the plexus his specialty wallop sharp and pointed to get the wind knocked out of the guy who then can’t neither breath not fart and he’s kicking him on the ground but this time he crooked and grabbed his fist and the guy nimbly turned around and kicked a swift “hi there!“ back like in the video game street fighter Dad lost his footing and landed on the steps to basement head-first with a bang and stayed there resting so I ran up and grabbed the guy’s arm and sez let’s scoot this bull’s sturdy when he wakes up you’ll get it in full and took him to the grounds in the parallel street where the kids play basketball behind the net and we sat outside for a talk only he did not said his name maybe he’s wanted and I sez let me check your beard is not a wig but what the heck there’s an iron thing under it as big as his dick and he sez I d’not get it what the bull wanted of me don’t mind sez I that’s just my fucking Dad oops he sez maybe you’d better call Mom in case help was needed don’t worry the connection’s dropped out of use 8 months ago because of sea-rib-real cancer oh I’m sorry sez he as if she’s worth a sorry that fucking bitch who grabbed my legs hold while Dad was raping me in her lap when I’s 14 both drunk blind like two owls of which I did not squeak to him nope…

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Bottle #11: ~ But Life Just Can’t Stop ~

Where did the phedais take weaponry from?

Light arms arrived, for all I can guess, by night choppers from Yerevan together with the flower for the city bakery plant. Besides, the garrisoned in the city regiment of the Soviet Army, when leaving it in the dead of night, did not pick a fight with the phedais who seized the regiment’s arsenal about an hour before the troops departure. The detachment commanders had their orders to withdraw from the zone of ethnic conflict and arrive in a specified location by the specified time. Recapture of the ammunition would definitely involve delay in the discharge of their orders.

And the adversary too shared their arms, at times. Thus, fighting back the advance to Askeran City (17 km east from Stepanakert) phedais grabbed two GRAD installations…

Once, coming down (and again after midnight) to Suicide's Spring (the handle was a self-made invention for my personal use because in route to that waterhead there were 65 steep, fairly shattered stone steps coated with slippery ice) I got fucking flabbergasted by the sight of an Azerbaijani tank (the affiliation attested by the crescent and star doodled on the turret) rolling with a goddamn clang-and-clink through the black-outed city in its repose between night artillery attacks.

At the unnerving vision my asshole’s sphincter reacted in its usual way (I mean the sudden adrenaline surge shot through my system) yet, by and by, I somehow persuaded myself that the iron monster should be none but a captured equipment whose driver decided to make a flying visit home and see his wife, you know… She must’ve been missing him too… press on, man, don’t make her wait too long… the asphalt has been fucked up before you and the traffic police… well, cut it out…

Phedai groups got organized through the knowledge by acquaintance and differed in both their quantity and denomination for which purpose they used the names of the heroes of yore (Chaush group, for instance), as well as handles or names of their commanders: the Fragment’s Group, the Group of Vacho, etc.

The General Command Headquarters stationed in the former Military Registration and Enlistment Office (MREO) used also for keeping spare Kalashnikov assault rifles there. The groups were separately deployed in the abandoned kindergartens of their choice.

Stepanakert, it seemed, was infiltrated with a spy and the most conveniently positioned artillery in Shushi City persistently worked on the kindergartens, yet the nearby houses suffered more. However, one of GRAD volleys did level half of the MREO building…

And not only phedais were pulling on their activities, the usual political routine unconquerably flowed in the city despite the underground way of life. The basement shelters turned the arena in the election campaign of candidates for the Supreme Council of the self-proclaimed Republic of Mountainous Karabakh, in conformity with the internationally accepted norms and practices.

My direct boss at the deceased paper, Arcadic, the Head of the Section of Russian Translations, joined the run for the Supreme Councilmanship too. He was in obvious jitters because of the mighty popularity his opponent enjoyed among the thieves-segment in their mutual electorate. The trepidation even made him give up shaving off his bristle. Moreover, getting readied to sell his image to audience in the basement at the underground debate with his contender…