Alone With Myself

Alone with Myself or How to Reach You, Descendants! by Leonid Karakhanovich Hurunts. A posthumous publication of entries from 1975-1982. Translated from the original Russian to English by Learn for Artsakh. 

Part Six: Reports from a Hospital Bed

As you know, the first ten to twelve days, and sometimes all twenty, depending on the extent to which the myocardium of the heart is damaged, the heart attack patient lies without the right to move his arm. This is the requirement of treatment.

How miserable you are, if you get into trouble, get a heart attack! Lying day after day, night after night, without the right to even recover in the toilet. You yourself understand what a position it is for a person who liked to travel almost half of Yerevan in a day on urgent matters. A prisoner of all medical prescriptions and nothing more!

That's right, a heart attackee is a prisoner of the strictest regime, but no one bothers him to fly wherever his heart desires on the wings of memories. And these memories have accumulated over more than six decades, God forbid, how many! Indulging in them, these memories, wherever I go, rejoicing, grieving! After all, memories are life. With all her troubles and joys. And I don't know what to focus my attention on: the good or the bad. It is curious which would outweigh if put on the scales? ....

My nurse arrives, getting ready to give me another injection. How good it is to live in this world! Sometimes I want to lean out of the window and shout to the whole world, as Boris Pasternak once did, saying:

Which, dear,

millennium are we celebrating here?

Hooray! The Kevorkovs are no longer strangling Armenians, and if you are from Yerevan, they even arrange receptions. Now “the Yerevanian does not suffer from Yerevanism,” he is just a guest from the brotherly neighboring republic. Not good for a guest from the brotherly republic to be turned away right at the gate. So he tries, he goes out of his way to please you. If you are a minister, a writer, a prominent person, absolutely lucky, they will creep in front of you, arrange banquets, and pronounce toasts. Such a miracle happened on the land of Karabakh, a miracle with such a beast as the bloody Mr. Boris Sarkisovich Kevorkov was and is!

There is an expression - a fool will be led to the road by a bludgeon - and it was not invented by us. We found such a bludgeon - two summons to Moscow, where they had a hearty conversation with Kevorkov. As I have already said, for every misdemeanor Kevorkov could have been judged by a strict court - expelled from the Party, imprisoned - he had long ago earned the highest punishment, but in Moscow they limited themselves to a beating, suggesting that he correct himself. And so he is correcting himself. Well! We saw Kevorkov in the role of an executioner, now let's look at him as a mutt dog, standing on its hind legs. Whatever you say, also a victory!

In Edvard Radzinsky's play Conversations with Socrates there are these words: "We come into the world with our hands clenched into a fist, as if we want to say: ‘Everything is mine.’ We leave the world with open palms: ‘I didn’t take anything, I don’t need anything, I’m all yours, gods!’”

Such noble and beautiful words! But before that, you have to grow up. As long as we're doing the opposite. As long as we have dragons as teachers. And dragon teeth are a poor teaching tool, they can break the backbone of a lion. That's what they're for, to break.

One bird, without a flock, will not reach the place of flight. The flock is led by something that no bird in itself possesses. If each bird possessed this something, it would easily make a flight on its own.

Without this something a person cannot live. That is why we endlessly mumble about the feeling of the elbow, about collegiality, about collectivism. We speak without really thinking about the seriousness of these words, not quite realizing the danger of playing with these words and concepts, reducing all the wisdom of collectivism to its appearance.

We often talk about the moral character of a person. This column in the questionnaire is the main one for permission to travel abroad. I would like to know, what is the price of a person who is unambiguous, like a telegraph pole? Party workers, if you line them up in order, are a nesting doll in a nesting doll. They must be precisely worked out so that they fit one into the other.

Understand, we are also nesting dolls. We see everything, we know everything, and not a single attempt to protest. Protest is a dangerous game, a battle lost in advance, this game has not been played in our country for a long time.

Modigliani is said to have painted the father of the family. Tom did not like the portrait, did not find a resemblance .. Twenty years passed, his father died. The son, sorting through the family trash, discovered a portrait from which his own face was looking at him. The artist was ahead of life, depicting what should have been in two decades, correctly unraveling the secret of genes.

I'm afraid that our descendants will be passed on genes that they will be ashamed of. The genes of servile fathers and grandfathers who have completely eaten their conscience, their human dignity, their selfhood. You will not envy those who will get our genes, the genes of generations with a gag in the mouth and a noose around the neck.

Injection, injection again. There is no longer a living place on my body free from injections. It’s good that they haven’t thought of introducing some kind of injection into the brain yet. What would happen to us, the sick, if there were such an injection, supposed to lull the work of the brain? In the meantime, there is none, we will think, think to ourselves.

The nurse with the syringe leaves, and I am again at the mercy of memory. Let me sum up what I have experienced. Anatole France asked the world the question: "What is socialism?" The great French humanist and writer, believing in our transformed world, proudly answered himself: "Socialism is the human conscience."

Dear Anatole France, forgive me, we are not the ones you relied on so much. Far from it.  Where, when we turned to the side, did we make that roll that led us to renounce ourselves, our ideals? How not to howl from pain, from resentment. The infallible apostles who turned the great ideals of mankind into a scarecrow and an object of ridicule in the eyes of the world.

Once my tribesmen perished in the desert of Deir-Zor. I survived because I was not born in Western Armenia. But there is a collective memory that passes from century to century. The memory of blood, which nothing can destroy.

April 24 is a day of mourning throughout Armenia. Armenia honors the memory of the victims of the Genocide.

I know this road to Tsitsernakaberd, the melody of Komitas splashing in the flames of fire. Listening to these heartbreaking sounds coming from under the ground, I hear the groans and cries of those who died in Baku, Nakhichevan, Shamkhor, in the burnt Shushi, in my native Karabakh, where Deir-Zor was, where Deir-Zor continues to this day.

When the tragedy broke out in Western Armenia in 1915, the great powers did not raise an eyebrow. They were indifferent to the death of an entire nation. Life took revenge on them for this silence. Many years later, Hitler, sending his thugs, the newly-minted Janissaries, to the West, admonished them with the words: “Who now remembers the massacre of Armenians?”

Today we close our ears at the sound of cries coming from little Karabakh. For 60 years now, the “Nakhijevan experiment,” which has remained unpunished, has been marching across the land of Azerbaijan, expelling Armenians wherever it can, wherever they still remain.

Our planet is very small. A fire that has arisen in any corner of it can engulf the whole world. The bonfires of nationalism lit in Azerbaijan can scorch more than one Karabakh.

I am resting in Koktebel, in the House of Creativity of Writers. Choosing a convenient day, a passing car went to Theodosia, where the world-famous Aivazovsky Museum is located. After the war, I have never been there, and to miss such an opportunity, to be nearby and not go to see the world masterpieces of the great marine painter, would be simply an irreparable miscalculation.

In addition, the museum has been directed by Parsamov, in love with the great artist, the author of magnificent monographs about Aivazovsky, for more than forty years. During the war years, he accomplished an unprecedented feat. Miraculously, from under the very nose of the Germans, on a fishing schooner, he took out all the paintings and delivered them to Armenia without loss. After the war, the canvases were returned to every single one, and the museum came to life again.

An elderly woman, a museum worker, leading me from picture to picture, told the story of each. She spoke with interest, with love. I listened with gratitude to this elderly woman, thinking about what a noble mission she is fulfilling.

At the end of the conversation, I wanted to ask her how I could find Parsamov, but she said, “I am Parsamov's wife. He knows you are here and wants to see you very much.”

“There is some kind of telepathy here,” I smiled. “I just wanted to ask about the health of the museum director…”

“Parsamov is no longer a director,” the woman said sparingly. “He is ill. Very ill.”

“Take me to him.”

The meeting, which took place in some five or six minutes (Parsamov lived in an annex at the museum - a very uncomfortable little room), inflicted a new wound on my heart.

This story, like many other stories that take place day after day on our earth, could decorate any satirical magazine. It causes both a bitter smile and impotent anger.

When Parsamov returned all the paintings to their homeland, Theodosia, reopened the museum and went to the police to certify his return, or simply put, to register, they cautiously flipped through the passport, passing it from hand to hand, and, returning it to the owner, said: “We won't register you. Go where you came from. We give it 24 hours. Not a minute more.”

Returning home, Parsamov felt bad. They diagnosed a heart attack.

Parsamov was bedridden for seven months, and when he recovered, he developed fear. He was afraid to go out into the street, fearing that they would recognize and evict him. His wife asked for help.

Just a few months ago, I appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta with an article called “Grabbers” according to which more than 45 people were arrested who had warmed their hands to the unclean business of speculating on apartments. 

Party workers were also involved. True, they escaped with “light bruises,” they were not tried, but they removed the secretary of the regional committee, the secretary of the city committee, the chairman of the city council ...

Lutak, the current secretary, knows to whom he owes his high position. I promised Parsamov to visit him in Simferopol and ask for help.

But I hastened with my promise. Lutak proved to be a worthy successor to Komyakhov, his predecessor. But before going to Lutak's, I stopped by Demidov's, the hero of my article "Grabbers." Pavel Alexandrovich Demidov is a collector of paintings, because of which all the fuss was played out, the sensational Simferopol epic.

In a one-room apartment, his paintings became crowded. When his granddaughter came along, it became impossible. There was nowhere to turn in the room.

Demidov appealed to the city council with a request to allocate him a room for the collection. By this time, the Demidov collection attracted the attention of the press, art lovers, and artists. It was valued at one million four hundred rubles. Demidov is 70 years old, he bequeathed the collection free of charge to the local history museum, but during his lifetime he did not want to part with it and asked, insistently demanded, a room. One of Demidov's paintings, an unknown work by Aivazovsky, was valued at 250,000 rubles. He could have sold it to the state and built himself a mansion with the money. However, the selfless man could not go for it, and did not want to deprive the collection of this unique work.

Naive Demidov! Knocking the thresholds, insistently demanding a room, he did not understand that the leaders to whom he addressed did not care about his meeting. It never occurred to him, an old communist, a participant in two wars, that he was denied a room, because for a long time they had not been provided with living space, but had been selling it. This was what my devastating article “Grabbers” was in Literaturnaya Gazeta, following which a sensational trial took place, which attracted the attention of the public of the entire Soviet Union. 32 million was eaten by the bosses of the City Council.

There is no need to retell the whole article, to spew this filth again, let's limit ourselves to one detail: Demidov got a room for his paintings, even a three-room apartment, but he got a long pang for his complaints.

Demidov's wife is a Tatar, by the way, also a member of the party. In general, the house is a complete conglomerate: he himself is Russian, from Siberia, his daughter-in-law is Russian, his daughter and son are already a mixture, and grandchildren ... Try to figure out their origin. But who needs to pay close attention to this. What if Demidov is also a Tatar? Then the conversation with him is short: 24 hours to get ready, wind it in all four directions. But Demidov did not give in. He is Russian, according to all documents - Russian. How many months have passed since all this mess, and the passions around the name of Demidov did not subside. Frequent night calls, cross-examinations.

That's what I learned on my visit to Simferopol after many months from the date of the newspaper's appearance.

Outraged, I decided, taking this opportunity, to stand up for Demidov along with Parsamov. In Lutak's office, I was informed by the secretary that he had an important meeting and would not be free soon. This upset my plans. I counted on two hours, no more, to catch the last bus to Koktebel.

I asked the secretary to report of me, saying that I was in the waiting room and couldn't wait. The secretary was impressed with my name, and she immediately ducked through the massive doors and came out, saying that he would take a break and see me.

So he thanked me for his chair, received on the occasion of the expulsion from the post of secretary of the regional committee Komyakhov. But, unfortunately, that's where the gratitude ended.

I mentally divided my conversation into two parts: Demidov, then Parsamov. Both cases are so stupid that it seemed to me that a couple of minutes is enough to solve all the problems. But alas...

After hearing about Demidov, Lutak said, “They will check. If he turns out to be a Tatar, we will evict him.”

Information for the ignorant: after the war, Stalin expelled many peoples, including the Crimean Tatars, from their native places.

But Stalin is gone, long gone. All the peoples who innocently suffered under him were returned to their native lands. Except for the Crimean Tatars. It was already Khrushchev's whim.

Lutak, without thinking about the absurdity of this whim, as before, under Stalin, fulfills the order coming from above. He did not learn any lessons either from Hitler's concern for the purity of the Aryan race, or from Stalin's pogroms. All the same idol, a robot that follows orders. This Lutak is extremely interested in what percentage of Tatar blood is in Demidov's grandson, in the veins of Demidov himself. It is much more interesting than the fact that Demidov, who has become the subject of complex genetic research, has been a member of the party since 1921, that his wife is also a communist, went along with Demidov the entire military path, raised the country together with him, served her as best she could.

In order not to explode with indignation, I am silent. I need to move on to the second point of my visit. Parsamov is not a Tatar, there is not a drop of Tatar blood in his veins. He is an Armenian, a man who saved the paintings of the great marine painter. What can Lutak say, be he thrice a Kevorkov and four times a Komyakhov? In my opinion - nothing. He will only be surprised, express regret about what happened and immediately call Theodosia, twisting the tail of whoever needs it.

But my expectations were in vain. Hearing the name of Parsamov, Lutak was seriously excited.

“Wha-a-at?! Is Parsamov still in Theodosia?” And he reached for the phone.

Here I could not resist, “Comrade Lutak! I did not come to you as an informant, but as a petitioner. I can come in a different capacity. I continue to be a correspondent for the Izvestia newspaper. We will continue this conversation another time, but for now I ask you to wait with the call, to feel sorry for the sick old man, not to disturb him with your harassment, while I will plead for him in Moscow, and, if necessary, I will come again to understand all this.”

Lutak, of course, was not afraid of my threats. However, he lowered his tone a little.

“You must have heard about the twice Hero of the Soviet Union Sultan Amet-Khan, [1]” he told me in a tone of indisputable significance. “After the war, he wanted to return to his homeland, to Alupka, we didn’t accept him, didn’t register him.”

I almost suffocated from anger, from this impenetrable stupidity, ignorance. But still, pulling himself together, I said: “But Parsamov is not a Tatar. He is Armenian.”

Lutak countered immediately, “In addition to the Tatars, we evicted Armenians and Greeks from Crimea. We don't write them down either.”

I'm completely lost. The actions of the Theodosian police seemed like some kind of wild miscalculation, arbitrariness, but it turns out that they are only following orders. I could not stand it, I flared up, “Let it be known to you: the chairman of the Supreme Council, the notorious Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, is an Armenian, and he lives and works in the Kremlin!”

Lutak did not hesitate to answer here either, “If your Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan comes to permanent residence in the Crimea, then we will not register him either.”

Lutak completely disarmed me, again returning the conversation to Sultan Amet-Khan, apparently considering this ridiculous act - not to register twice the Hero of the Soviet Union in his own house in his homeland - a heroic step, confirming his disinterestedness, his party principles. I knew well the name of this illustrious pilot who shot down 64 German vultures in a dogfight. Just in case, I said, “I heard in Alupka there is his monument?”

“It was standing,” Lutak snapped coldly. “Now it’s not standing anymore.”

“But why?” I pretended not to understand. “Did he do something wrong?”

“You already know about it. Sultan Amet-Khan is a Tatar,” he said firmly. “There is no point in erecting a monument to a Tatar.”

Struck by Lutak's cynicism and shameless frankness, I looked at him as if he were a dinosaur miraculously brought into our civilized age. On the face - not a single thought, not a note of regret.

Apparently, Lutak was not going to quarrel with me, the Izvestia correspondent. Lowering his voice, he condescendingly but firmly stated, “Do not misunderstand me. We are party soldiers. We do what we are told. We don't deal with bullshit.”

I had no choice but to retreat immediately.

The second time I did not have to go there with the mandate of a correspondent for a central newspaper. They didn't vouch for my life. After all, I stirred up an anthill with my article. 45 people in the case of speculation in apartments were sentenced to various terms, many remained at large. There could be many hunters to teach a lesson to the journalist, through whose fault the whole sensational Simferopol epic broke out. And it’s not very convenient: an Armenian will defend his compatriot from Ukrainians. They promised to help. And they helped. In Pravda about Parsamov, an article "Honorary Citizen of Theodosia" appeared. After Pravda, of course, the old man was left alone. But they did not return to the director's position. His place was taken. It was taken by a man who should not be allowed at a cannon shot at art in general, and Aivazovsky in particular. A retired colonel, a dork and a soldier, who could make such a remark to the staff of the Aivazovsky Museum, “Why are you praising this Armenian? You know that the Armenians, like the Tatars, were expelled from Crimea.”

Here I break off my notes. I'm afraid of having a heart attack again. But even interrupting the memories, I can not get rid of a thought that cannot but disturb any of us. Kevorkov and Lutak! Why do these different people living in different parts of the world have such a striking resemblance, a kinship of souls? All the same unknown thread, which, stretching for great distances, does not break, winds on.

If you asked me how to avoid a heart attack, I would advise - expel a person from yourself. I'm sure a heart attack bypasses dumb, emotionless creatures. They are not subject to itl. Medicine has proven that animals do not have a heart attack!

The tit goes to bed with its legs up so that the sky does not fall on its head. I remembered this saying, intending to say about one more pain that torments me and does not give me rest. This is what I do, and my favorite pastime is writing.

How can you, turning the pages of your life, bypass an occupation to which I devoted only a little less than forty years to? What I live for and never get tired of. 

May the reader forgive me for my frequent reminders of the craft of writing. I will answer this in the same way as I answered those who reproached me, saying that I sound the alarm about Karabakh too often. My answer is: stop kicking Karabakh on every occasion, and I will forget the roads to it. I can say the same thing: leave the writers alone, and we will not talk about the Sword of Damocles hanging over each of us who write.

I once read from Hemingway: "Write only the truth, such as you see, the rest is worthless."

There are many such appeals to write only the truth, but I have not come across any speeches calling for writing untruths or deliberate lies. True, there is one term, the so-called "socialist realism," which includes all the tricks of the world, but I do not know it, and therefore I do not take it into account. So, truth-how much is it worth?

We readily quote Hemingway, other great ones too, we ourselves urge to write the truth, but we write lies, leaving the truth in our minds. Such arithmetic. And this arithmetic is in vogue. The name of this arithmetic is socialist realism. We didn't invent it, it's not for us to decipher it. I will say one thing: I do not remember a single slogan calling for writing a lie. We do not create such slogans, neither verbally nor in print. But untruth marches through our lives without encountering barriers on its way.

Good does not exist by itself. Evil must always be in its neighborhood, so that, opposing it, good is affirmed on earth. How would we define the taste of sweet without tasting bitter?

I have a transistor. Every day, in addition to music, I listen to the latest news. My God, what good fellows we are! We're overriding all the plans, we're not giving away anything! Listen to the radio and TV, you might think that we are rolling like cheese in butter. Everything is fine, everything is as it should be!

But the wife comes to the hospital tired from shopping. The more we talk about our successes, the less these successes. Like children sucking on an empty pacifier.

I see the reproachful look of the attending physician, all the "fans" of my health. Including the pleading look of my wife. “For God's sake, at least calm down here! Why bother yourself with questions that have no answer?” 

With my mind I understand that this should not be done, it is dangerous, but my heart rebels, does not accept advice. It rebels against the cowardly flight into the bushes, behind the barrier of self-defense.

More recently, heart attacks were treated with complete immobility. Now they no longer adhere to such strictness. But in America they treat with movement.

Who knows what is really dangerous for the heart: to hush up what is tormenting you, tearing you to pieces, or throwing out everything that has accumulated in your soul?

I save my heart, I tear all the dirt out of it.

I am actually forbidden to enter Karabakh. So much for that, you disgraced writer.  You messed up with your Karabakh, now you are an uninvited guest in it.  Dangerous person for others. As soon as you have a word with one of your fellow countrymen, whether he is a relative or an outsider, break a piece of bread with him, and that's it. He is in for a big punishment. Acquaintance with Hurunts, kinship with him will come out sideways. This happened to Komitas Karapetyan in Norshen. Or with the memorable Sara Oganesyan, my aunt. This is what happened to Yervand Marutyan in Stepanakert. I stayed with him for only two or three days, and he was tortured with endless calls from high authorities to clarify: “Why did Hurunts come to Karabakh? What does he want here?”

Marutyan, of course, was removed from his post - he worked as an investigator in the regional court - he was transferred to retirement, although he had just turned 60 years old.

I want to tell you what kind of miracle-monster this is - the institution of the "Russian secretary" in the republics. Oh, this is worth a separate discussion! The meaning of this institution, as you can already guess, is to have an eye in the republic, control over the possible manifestation of local nationalism. That's how it was intended, anyway. In practice, it is the most convenient institution for carrying out this very local nationalism, frenzied, terror. This is visible to the naked eye, but we try not to notice it. Practically the Russian secretary is in the other's, trying in every possible way to please him.

It was after the war. A young Sergei Antonov, a future famous Russian writer, comes to Baku. He travels to the Bays of Ilyich, gets acquainted with the oilmen of the field and writes a book of essays about them. At that time, there were many Armenians among the engineers and drilling masters [2]. Many of them became the heroes of his book. The Central Committee of Azerbaijan found out about it, asked to give it to them to read. Antonov was summoned to the Central Committee. One of the secretaries, Kirsanov, talked to him. He returned the book to the writer, bluntly telling him to remove all Armenian surnames from it. In the manuscript, all these names were underlined in red.

What the Azerbaijani could not tell him, the Russian did. What a convenient reception for a sub-promotion. Try to accuse Kirsanov of Azerbaijani nationalism.

Such a secretary is also under Kevorkov. Just like Kirsanov, he solves the most delicate problems in the region. But this, by the way, had to be said.

A friend of mine, secretly from my wife and doctors, brought to me at the hospital an abstract of a dissertation for the degree of candidate of architecture. The author of the abstract is Avalov Elturan Veli Ogly, Azerbaijani. Topic of the dissertation: "The architecture of the city of Shushi and the problems of preserving its historical appearance."

At the end of the essay, someone who read before me wrote down: “Where are the Armenians?” I read the abstract and ask about the same thing. Indeed, where are the Armenians? There is not a single word in the abstract about the Armenians, the indigenous inhabitants of Shushi, or about cultural monuments of Armenian origin, not a single sound about our existence in the entire dissertation.

However, nothing unusual - a new diversion against historical truth. What kind of dissertation is it if it's on lies? If there is no historical truth in it, or it is turned upside down? Don't worry, Avalov will defend his dissertation. Moscow will help. We are no strangers to Shemyakin's trial.

There is no doubt that such sabotage was needed in order to once again, using the support of Moscow, walk through the living. Yes, yes, the living! I do not use this word for the sake of elegance. Many people still remember the living torch lit by the Musavatists in the center of Karabakh. It was Shushi that was burning, its Armenian part, set on fire from all sides. The city burned down and the people were exterminated. The Karabakh Genocide, carried out by a brutal crowd of Azerbaijanis, fueled by the Turks of Ankara. 

Now they are writing a dissertation on the architecture of a city that does not exist, that has burned down. What made Shushi Shushi, one of the most beautiful cities in Transcaucasia, turned into ashes. Where is Khanamiryan's theatre, Akuletsi church, the famous school that gave the country eminent people: mathematicians, writers, revolutionaries?

Why did Avalov have to choose such a topic for his dissertation? To reopen wounds, sprinkle them with salt? To once again remind us of what they have done, to mock the memory of the dead, to provoke a new wave of letters from the offended, offended by time, to enjoy their pain, their defenselessness? However, in the abstract there is a hint of the destruction of the Armenian cemetery with the preservation of the graves of figures of Azerbaijani culture, the poet Vagif and others.

Avalov's dissertation was advised by the supervisor, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR, Doctor of Arts, Professor A. Salamzade. One has only to wonder at the spiritual poverty of this pseudo-scientist, doctor-professor A. Salamzade. In order to fry a scrambled egg from two eggs, it is not at all necessary to turn a large house into a fire. But our friends and comrades, swearing their love in words from morning till night, are actually burning down a big house.

The worst thing is when cruelty becomes a habit, when you have to repeat bitterly after Siamanto: “O human justice, let me spit on your forehead!” 

I endlessly hide this notebook both from my kind Aesculapius [doctor] and from my wife, who care about my health. It seems to them that peace is the only balm for a heart attack, a bridge to recovery.

But, firstly, who knows what is more important for health? Silence, unwillingness to speak out, to get rid of what has accumulated over the years in the cellars of my memory? Secondy, I suffered a severe heart attack. It can repeat at any moment and become fatal. What then? With all this information - to the next world? No, I do not agree. And from the afterlife I will fight with the fools. I'll make them restless on Earth.

I've been in bed for two months now. Try to lie down day after day and not think about anything. I don't know about others, but I can't. I constantly think. In my mind I travel either to the very North, to the ends of the earth, or to the Far East, to many, many regions of our vast homeland where I have been. I restore in my memory the landscapes close to my heart, the people I met and, of course, I do not forget to turn to my Karabakh on the way, with which I am inseparable, despite all the tricks of Kevorkov.

As long as I remember myself, I remember you too, Karabakh. I remember your grievances, your unhealed wounds.

And I love you like that - I love painfully and hard. And to this day you are my strongest and constant love. And not because you are that corner of the earth where I saw the world, where I took my first step - and this, of course - but most of all because you are forgotten and abandoned, that you need my affection, attention.

It’s all right that I’ll get in trouble for it. I take all the trouble I get for you as the highest reward for my love.

Notes

[1] Sultan Amet-Khan participated in the Great Patriotic War (the war of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics against Nazi Germany) and was awarded as a Hero of the Soviet Union.

[2] The first person to ever drill oil in Azerbaijan was an Armenian, Hovhannes Mirzoyan. He founded the first successful oil company in Azerbaijan and is considered the founding father of the Baku oil industry. His company was eventually shut down after massacres against Armenians. 

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