Comrade Geidar Aliev was being trained and shaped into the taker-over after Leonid Ilych Brezhnev, persistently, in earnest. You could see it with both of your eyes shut.

Firstly, over and over again from the high rostrum of the Party Congresses, Azerbaijan was trumpeted The Most Blooming Republic of the USSR and Leonid Ilych developed a habit (overlapping to an addiction) of visiting that bloom, and never was he to come back without this or that nice souvenir.

That might be a scimitar flashing gems of precious nature or a finger ring promoting the right political context (blood red ruby in the center surrounded by 15 diamonds – the shining personification of 15 Republics in the USSR) the trinket’s value equivalent to 22+ vehicles “Volga” of the latest make by the state authorized price, no tips under the counter.

Yep, cunning East did discover the soft spot of comrade General Secretary, his tender attitude to shiny objects. Wise East did not miss to guess what those four (or five?) Gold Medals of the Hero of the Soviet Union on the leader’s coat were hinting at glaringly enough.

Besides, comrade Geidar Alirzaevich could proudly report (and he did it) to his superiors in Moscow that in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan they gave up pocketing bribes (8 of 11 from the CC Members had to be replaced and the remaining 3 prudently pulled up the undesirable practices, notwithstanding their kinship with the First Secretary).

He deposed all of the corrupt managers starting with ministers and down to kolkhoz foremen, which vacant positions were put up for a garage sale.

The population of the Republic knew the price list by heart – how much was the position of a minister or the title of doctor of science, the job of the head of a clinic, and so on along the hierarchy lines.

My mistake in 1987 was to arrive in Baku in a naive hope of getting the job of a construction worker (they would scramble for a bricklayer of the 4th category!) and not a kopeck in my pocket.

Quite naturally, at employment offices they informed me there was no foreseeable demand for my specialty and kept winking at each other, waiting.

But had they given me a job, everything could turn different too, and this war I’d consider from a contrastingly opposite angle, say, from Mardakian Settlement on the Caspian sea shore.

(Cut it out! It was a fucking hooey and happens only what has to happen.)

And after Brezhnev’s sufferings were over (in the final years of his leadership to the mike they were bringing the poor thing clutched by his coat sleeves and turning the white sheets solicitously upside down when he grabbed his speech text the wrong way), the following mummy (yes sure, that one under whom the KGB and militia were disrupting day shows in the cinema with their round-ups – what are you doing here in the working time of day? Are you a parasite or what?) while being at the rudder, transferred Geidar, like one KGB man another, to Moscow and gave him the post of First Deputy of the Prime Minister in charge of both the light and heavy industry and on top of everything else entrusted with one more reform of the educational system in the USSR.

And the warmly memorable Baikal-Amur Railroad was laid under his supervision, and whenever another cruise liner sank catastrophically Aliev was sent there to punish those guilty and discover the reason for the tragedy in hand.

In short, for the Soviet population there remained no defendable grounds any more for doubting that their next Kremlin Ruler would be of Caucasian roots, again…

However, Comrade Gorbachev found crook ways to cross the straight path of Comrade Aliev's rise, jumped unexpectedly in a Central Committee wide corridor (like from under the slippery parquet!) and became the General Secretary of the CPSU.

Feeling slighted by such a turn and for security reasons as well, Geidar went to his native Nakhichevan which is a rather large mountainous autonomous region of Azerbaijan cut from the Republic by a wide swath of Armenia’s territory (this here Caucasus is just a kinda layer cake, I swear!)

In 1991 the self-isolated pensioner wisely spurned off his membership in the Communist Party of the USSR (those SCES putschists turned out miserable pussies), then picked up the post of the Chairman of the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Nakhichevan, and got a development grant ($100 000 000) from Turkey.

Turkey's attitude towards the population of Nakhichevan was always markedly warm and brotherly, and so as to have a stretch of common borderline with the autonomy, the government of Turkey worked out a territory swap with Iran at 3 : 1 rate. You never can guess the underlying springs or reasons for moves in this here subtle East…

President of Azerbaijan Elchibey, that same who spent a year in prison for his dissidence, embraced the presidency for the exactly same stretch (habit is always the decisive force) resulting from his wrongful political behavior:

– declared (often inappropriately yet everywhere) that Turkey's “ueber alles”;

– threatened to incorporate in Azerbaijan all of the Southern Azerbaijan (which is a part of neighboring Iran openly repulsive to the idea of such an ‘Anschluss’);

– rejected joining CIS (redrawn version of the USSR);

– intimidated the leaders of the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia with their replacement, unavoidably nearing, by the local dissidents;

– demanded a translator at the signing a treaty in Moscow, albeit having a good command of Russian;

– commenced to flirt with America…

For how long to tolerate the like inadequacy?

On May 28, 1993, the personnel of the 104th Guards Airborne Division are withdrawn from Ganja City ahead of schedule, which introduces a good occasion for the following test:

Where did the bulk of the mentioned army detachment's arsenal stay?

Exactly! In Ganja! (wow! some folks here started to see thru subtleties of East!)

That very Ganja City, the seat of Suret Huseinov and his personal army organized with the beginning of Karabakh war. That same Suret who Elchibey did not know what to do about – one day awards him the title of Hero of Nation, the next day issues an order to arrest that effing Huseinov (a self-confirmed case of inadequacy, dear colleagues, you know it as well as I do).

On May 28, the well-equipped army of Suret set off for taking Baku and punishing Abulfaz.

Eventually, they reached the capital.

The city life turns into a round the clock nightmare, anyone possessing weapons – shoots.

The military are shooting, the police shooting, Suret’s rebels shooting, neighborhood committees of self-defense shooting, thieves eager not to lose the handy moment are shooting too.

Who shoots at who is beyond comprehension, but all and everyone is shooting!.

And it’s not funny but very sad and difficult to live in a city where they shoot.

Abulfaz makes a telephone call to Nakhichevan, addresses the Chairman of the SC of the Autonomous SSR, 'Help me out,' says he, 'eh? Come on,' he says, 'eh? you’re Aliev, me too, moreover, both of us are from the same autonomy, eh?'

On June 9, Geidar arrives in Baku and a week later Abulfaz Gadirguluevich modestly, neither pomp nor surplus fuss, flies off to Nakhichevan to his native village of Keleky.

Another bloodshed-less transfer of power, hallelujah once again, if not to count those suffered in the period of mayhem shooting...

In the course of that internal strife, the Army of Self-Defense of Mountainous Karabakh liberated/grabbed five districts of Azerbaijan which initially, when all that Movement for Independence started, were not a part to the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region.

Where else if not to that sort of lamentable situation could lead “...the mistakes of the leadership in the relations with Russia”? (a citation from G. Aliev’s interview for the newspaper Коммерсантъ, ru.wikipedia.org/.../Алиев,_Гейдар_Алирза_оглы).

At the presidential election on October 3, 1993, Geidar Aliev put together 98.8% of votes and immediately joined CIS.

For such exemplary behavior, the Azerbaijani forces were allowed to launch, in December 1993, a major offensive.

“By spring 1994, the offensive died out [79, same site], the armed forces were exhausted [80, same site].

Then followed an equally hapless offensive by Armenian side and parliamentarian structures of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the unrecognized RMK signed the Bishkek protocol calling for cease of fire at night on 8 to 9 May [83]”.

Thus ended, to some extent, the first war for independence of Mountainous Karabakh and, resultantly, I got kicked out from the PC by the SC of the RMK, as long as presence of an analytic-translator was simply pointless at the time of peace.

And it’s a pity. In part. Yes, it is, because I had turned a state-of-the-art professional in the trade and in my monthly reports to the Supreme Council of the RMK foretold the ceasefire with the accuracy of 1 (one!) week without any prompts from the BBC, and show-politologists at Russian TV or any other mass-media clowns. Yay!

A week later, on the basis of the position liberated from me, they created the Analytical Department by the Supreme Council of the RMK of 35 employees (one of whom not a female) headed by an experienced nomenclature cadre, amateur philatelist (who certainly should know what side stamps are licked on), and very soon the connoisseur persuaded the RMK leadership that the most urgent need of the RMK was issuing a post stamp of their own.

(Ara! At the auction in 100 years this day, stamp collectors would bid millions for a single one of this shit!

Dig a hole in a secure place, stick it in, and your great-grand kids would thank you for the thought.)

Active hostilities transformed into the trench confrontation of posts, where monthly or once in two months the enemy sniper picks and shoots another boy, oftener to death than not.

Although there happened excesses too, alike to the massacre at the post in the vicinity of the village of Hatsi…

Phedai Valyo and the 14-man unit of the post shift from Hoctemberian District in Armenia went to relieve the 14 soldiers of the previous shift nearby the mentioned village.

The post comprised two 20-meter trenches meeting at obtuse angle, and a dugout. The fresh shift were coming unaware that the post had been captured by an Azerbaijani unit.

The moment the Hoctemberian guy leading their Indian file turned round the corner in the trenches, he was knifed to prevent the alarm. His follower in the file was too close not to hear.

A fierce gunfight burst forth ending in Valyo and other shifters’ retreat into a field of wheat where they were joined by his buddy Syamo, who'd been doing his turn with the previous shift.

Syamo related it was his watch by the machine gun at night, when the weapon slowly moved away dragged off by the crept up Azerbaijanis. He pulled the trigger yet the machine gun jammed. And the assaulting force rushed to attack firing their guns. Syamo jumped out of the trench, and rolled down the slope having no time to alert the buddies sleeping in the dugout…

The group, hiding themselves among the wheat ears, contacted over the walkie-talkie their regiment. Reinforcement came together with one tank. The Azerbaijanis fight back from the trenches. The tank went over and waltzed from above burying them in the trench.

After the fight was over, they dug out 36 bodies. The casualties on the Armenian side amounted to 14 (the previous shift-unit minus Syamo plus the Hoctemberian guy).

It took a long time to find all the ears from the Armenian bodies, still they collected all of them.

Valyo was loading the killed Armenians in the arrived KAMAZ dump to take them to the morgue, and his uniform front got smeared all over.

After unloading to the Stepanakert morgue, he was suggested to break the news to the families of the local boys. He answered, ‘Go and tell yourself’.

Then he went to his parents' house to change...

Armenian side contacted the Azerbaijani side over the radio suggesting them to collect the bodies. The answer was, ‘This is Azerbaijani state, let them stay in their Homeland’.

In the interment ceremony participated a light back how digger BELARUS...

The Stepanakert Military Registration and Enlistment Office (MREO) was repaired and became what it had always been before they used it for the phedai headquarters.

The wider gorges were barred with cables stretched across, high so high, with coiling pieces of wire to hang down at certain intervals so as to discourage some or another fighter-bomber from sneaking up thru the air space in that gorge.

The Supreme Council of the RMK worked hard, and carefully contemplated each and every of the laws copy-pasted from the SC of Armenia before to pass them second-hand, for the local use (yes, at times with the same typos overlooked still back in Armenia but who does ever need to open them those constitutions?).

The chairman of the committee in charge of distributing the relief for the population received thru Armenia (long ago, at the very beginning of the Movement), moved over to Yerevan but first... (eee! fuck him!.) and became an oligarch there.

The nomenclature consolidated into 32 ministries, like, Foreign Affairs, Defense, Monument Protection… a hell of a lot, actually (in Swiss they have got only 7 but they are dull and lacking inventiveness and imagination).

And how not to mention the Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Employment, Ministry of Sports, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, Finance Ministry, Ministry of Patriotic Work Among the Younger Generation, Ministry of Philately, and…, and…, and…

Komandushchi remained the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Self-Defense (certain persons had to learn pronouncing the letter «щ» to facilitate a smoother personal promotion). He got awarded the rank of General (Armenian, yet spiffed in the late USSR generals' outfit) and the title of the Hero of Nation (or something like that) as well as the Order of Battle Cross First Class or a sort of.

He had already seen to the prophylactic cleansing (which is the must in any liberation/independence war: fidels have to get rid of che gevaras because the horse named Bolivar would not carry two at once) – the field commanders of dangerously outstanding popularity fell by the hands of unknown saboteurs on the difficult Karabakh roads…

It was much easier with the fighters from Diaspora. You keep them for a month in the Shushi prison, set them free and they are no more around. Taking off with the afterburner. The trick is to let them out one by one, not in a bunch.

And, by the bye, them those Diaspora are so naive! While down here for the asphalt and general improvement of sidewalks in Engels Street (presently Manukian Street, whose whole length does not extend over 360 meters) they plumped $6 000 000, still over there they launch the annual TV marathon collecting cash for Mountainous Karabakh.

A few brothers-in-arms of Komandushchi also became Generals and moved to the Yerevan’s Ministry of Defense, and when some local plumb loco there parked his Jeep at the General’s Parking Spot by the Ministry, his vehicle got riddled with bullets from the General’s handgun – who do you wanna jump, bitch? Go and look for spare parts now!

In the impenetrable dark along main street of Stepanakert (former Kirov Street, presently Freedom Fighters Street) at night switch on half a dozen electric bulbs from loose wires fixed above the tables of seeds and soft drinks traders. Each bulb brought out of the cave darkness in the stair-case entrance to the building of the respective entrepreneur...

Across every other street or lane, black cloth strips stretched taut above the road—two or three in a street, or five, or more, depending on the street length—to perpetuate for a couple of years the memory of those who left that street to perish in battles:

«Арам – 18»

«Размик – 42»

«Армен – 24»

«Виген – 31»

«Тиго – 19»…

They lived here before the war and those figures indicate their age when it ended. For them…

For the survived, the war is not over but lurked to get regrouped and burst up anew from where you’d never guess to expect…

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