A Troubled Home
Over the past five years, I have returned to Nagorno-Karabakh repeatedly, making photos through a four-day war in 2016, of life in the relatively peaceful years that followed, of the devastating war in Fall 2020 and of its aftermath. Three years later, there is still uncertainty and continuing worry for the people living here.
There has been a conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus, for decades, with fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces. In 1994, after six years of war, a ceasefire was concluded, but violence has continued along the contact line between the unrecognized republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan. The conflict broke out into a war lasting four days in 2016, and later into a 45-day war in Fall 2020.
Lieutenant Vahe Avanesyan, 27, and soldier Harut Gasparyan,19, wait in a trench at a frontline post after an order to hide, during the Nagorno Karabakh Four-Day war in Martakert on April 4, 2016.
Araksya Grigoryan, 43, (left) a single mother of seven, poses for a portrait with her children in their house in Martakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, on February 5, 2017. Araksya's elder son, Sasun, is back home for a break from his military service. The family received the house from the Nagorno-Karabakh government after Araksya gave birth to her fifth child.\\
Young man waits for a car on the main road near Martakert, Nagorno Karabakh, on Feb 2, 2017.
Anjelika Ayaryan, 10, stands under a tree as her friend Tatevik picks berries in Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh, on June 3, 2017.
Epraqsya Kandunts, 34, poses for a portrait together with her seven children, in Charektar village, Nagorno-Karabakh, on July 15, 2017.
New-born boy in the maternity hospital of Nagorno-Karabakh capital Stepanakert, on August 19, 2017.
Kitchen table inside a home in Martuni, Nagorno-Karabakh, on October 1, 2020. The house was hit at 7:30 in the morning of September 27, 2020. Martuni was among the locations targeted on the first day of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020.
House set on fire by its owners, close to Dadivank Monastery in Kalbajar region, seen on November 14, 2020. Kalbajar is one of the regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, turned over to Azerbaijan as the Nagorno-Karabakh war ended.
Anush Aleksanyan cries over the coffin that carries her son Erik Hovsepyan, 18, in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh on December 19, 2020. Erik is buried for the second time, his coffin was transferred from Nagorno-Karabakh's Taghavard village to Stepanakert, as half of the village Taghavard came under Azerbaijan's control.
Liana Babayan, 41, and Gegham Babayan, 45, pose with guns in the living room of their house in Stepanakert, on July 16, 2017.
Children in Mets Tagher village, Hadrut region, play and run around an airplane that belonged to a WWII Marshal from this village in Nagorno-Karabakh, on February 28, 2020.
Part of a missile seen on a street in Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh, on October 16, 2020. Armenians call this town Shushi while Azerbaijanis call it Shusha, the town came under Azerbaijan's control by the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
Families from Nagorno-Karabakh wait for busses to Stepanakert, in Yerevan, Armenia, on November 19, 2020. These families found refuge in Armenia during the days of the Nagorno-Karabakh war and are now returning to their home towns and villages in Nagorno-Karabakh.
People gather in the military cemetery of Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, to commemorate the soldiers fallen during the Nagorno-Karabakh war in Fall 2020. On September 26, 2021.