The Blog

Or maybe, two fears?

First off, suppose, he trades Island for Maya but what if she too will become an island? One of the dull islands where the thrill of pioneering discoveries gets replaced with boredom ahead of time?

What if he’s heading to the ineluctable loss of a mellow violin melody, with its girlishly naive waist, maturing into the gluey buzzing of cello's solo to be transformed into ungrabbable double bass (more and more so) with its regular brain-busting “dum! pdum! dum! Pdum!”?

Or else what if…

Stop! Forget it! It does not matter! Even these virtual “ifs” are not enough to steer him back until and if they become a reality…

And then his fear number two – he is not sure if Peccy would assent and how does he start her at all?

"Intuitively, boy! Intuitively! Besides, there always is the old good try and error…"

. . . . .

He moved, hither-thither, rubbing himself into the tight space, sighed, and sweeping aside the unnecessary in the irreversibility of this here moment doubts, said irrevocably:

"Well, OK. Do it, Peccy. 'Power Button's on!' Come on, babe!"

The upper valve, screechy-and-slow moved downward…

* * *

Bottle #19: ~ 1992, Full of Worries and Strife ~

When keeping to the raw facts of life, Abulfaz Gadirgulu ogly was just one more Aliev, but if you are a dissident then your vocation obliges to somehow be different, which is a hard nut to crack where any other (okay, fine, every third) guy around is also Aliev (even at my hitch in a construction battalion of the Soviet Army our detail's commander was Corporal Alik Aliev).

Or again that same Deputy Chairman of the KGB of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan and, simultaneously, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, Geidar Aliev, and all his relatives at each and every post of prominence – Alievs as well.

In 70’s Abulfaz all of a sudden spoke up (and rather hotly) on Lenin and the USSR, allowing himself discernibly denigrating tinges in the spectrum of intonations, for which rebellion he got 1 (one!) year of imprisonment.

In the USSR for the like oratory no one got off hook without doing 10-year stretch, but the rebel bore the same surname as Geidar.

So, 12 months later Abulfaz got freed, reinstated in the position of a junior researcher at a linguistic institute, and became the one and only dissident in all of Azerbaijan.

After the collapse of the USSR, he hurriedly discarded his family name, dubbed the Turkish-sounding 'Elchibey' next to the 'Abulfaz', and headed the forces of opposition styled as The Popular Front.

The Shushi capture on May 8, 1992 was deeply resented by The Popular Front.

In the morning on May 15, they presented their ultimatum to President Mutalibov – by 3 pm to get effing off his effing position.

With no response got by the appointed time, they shoot their unopposed rounds around the Supreme Council and then entered the Presidential Palace as well but found no Mutalibov there, who had already fled the country of his own accord, for which deed he is praised up till now as the president who had resigned staging no bloodshed.

And that, by the bye, presents a good example to follow, but will they ever learn anything? Ugh!

On June 7, Elchibey was elected to the presidency and the Karabakh conflict developed into a large-scale war. Hither-thither. They surrender a village then capture back its ruins, surrender the ruins then recapture them back in even worse conditions.

“The Ministry of Defense carried out round-ups in cities taking away youths from their homes, stopped city route buses to arrest young men and send them to the front line.

Different organizations, including Helsinki Civil Assembly, were turned to by complaining parents: in the morning their son left home for work (college, visit, date), never came back, they reported to the police, two days later got a notice:

'…your son bravely perished fighting for his Fatherland.'

Azerbaijani political scientist Zardusht Alizade"

(source:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%AD%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%87%D0%B8%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%B9,_%D0%90%D0%B1%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%84%D0%B0%D0%B7_%D0%93%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%B3%D1%83%D0%BB%D1%83_%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BB%D1%8B)

The PC by the SC of the RMK was relocated to the former Regional Committee of the CPSU building, floor 3. The job of analytic did piss me off at the BBC World Service who obviously had no intentions to help me in the short waves range. Stranded, seeing no assistance from them, was I doing my professional duties. If the Karabakh conflict at least once a month was mentioned by those snobs – Hallelujah! While my position called for turning in a solid-looking report to the Supreme Council every month, Hallelujah or no Hallelujah—each month, be you dead or reanimated—while those darn BBC chatters kept speaking of nothing except for the cricket matches at the New Zealand Championship. How that for mass-media employees’ solidarity, eh?

And only dear Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, helped me kindly out when she came to Baku for signing a treaty between the Azerbaijani government and 2 companies, the British BP and the Norwegian Statoil, on development of two oil fields in the Azerbaijani zone in the Caspian sea.

Because of that her visit, they were mentioning our conflict for three days but then again drifted back to cricket and soccer matches.

Thus, I became a rear office-rat and at the moment of exploding GRAD rounds I ran into the corner, sat on my haunches and watched the glass in the window panes arching out into the room like a skiff sail and backward, without breaking though, obviously firmer than in the paper’s editorial office or maybe because of the height – it was the third floor after all.

The shelter in the basement (the hospital got removed someplace else already), I never used because of pride and being too lazy – three floors down then three floors back. For which reason, during bombardments, although scared, I kept to the PC Backroom…

But then I learned a way to determine time and direction of forthcoming offensives. It’s just a cinch, whenever in the Russian mass-media one of the conflicting sides stated their complains about the enemy’s attack to one or another village, that served a clear-cut indication that in a couple of days they’d start an offensive from that very village and now it would be the counterpart's turn to complain…

To the front line I went only once. It was the village of Drmbon which hadn’t been surrendered and re-captured yet, so the houses were still in place, abandoned for the most part.

The commander talks over his walkie-talkie (the Diaspora's present to the field commanders) in a reluctant manner, a score of fighters, also tired. One soldier obviously from Armenia, you always could make them out by the black cotton uniform, some posh rags until got dusted thoroughly. GRAD's rare booms at the horizon.

Video camera operator Benic shot an interview and off we went back to Stepanakert.

Two-hour ride along the junk scattered on the roadside – discarded baby perambulators, trunks, kits and the like jetsam. Especially at the uphill stretches. It was the moment of Mardakert City surrender, one day after the fleeing refugees walked from there about sixty kilometers.

The long column it was, on reaching Stepanakert they walked thru the city for about an hour, no less. Walking and walking.

They spent the night in the Region Executive Committee building lying on the carpet runners of all the four floors. Babies squealing, folks panicking. And in the morning the wave moved on. The Lachin corridor to Armenia had been secured already, which meant another fifty kilometers to the border.

On the bridge over the border-line river they were met by the Armenian cordon under the command of a dissident who had just returned from exile to fight for the presidency. He started yelling at the mujiks that they were cowards and did not defend their native town but fled. Then they collected the gold earrings from the refugee womenfolk and let the column pass to Armenia.

I know his family name, the cordon commander's, yet won’t let it out, being too disgusted to even pronounce it. Besides, it’s possible there happened decent people among his ancestors. The bastard had shitted all over his family name. But later he still was popping up in the Yerevan political life with his goatee, for a long period…

Another ripping surprise was served by the cable from Satenic, “Departing from Moscow to Yerevan, flight…” (the number I cannot recollect).

At the cash desk of the SC I got my salary for three months in advance, with Guegham’s assistance for the occasion, 600 Soviet rubles.

By that time all the former Soviet republics had introduced currencies of their own already and only here remained a noticeable lag in the form of Lenin’s bust profile in the banknotes…

By a touching chopper I reached Yerevan and went to the wife’s relatives in Arabkir neighborhood because the flight of forgotten number from Moscow arrived late at night.

When at Zvartnots Airport they announced the arrival, I still got time to buy flowers in the underground level to observe the canons of a happy meeting.

However, on the escalator bringing the passengers from the second floor, neither Satenic nor kids were present.