Armenia
21st August, 2007
by Dan
“Um guys, this village is not abandoned. I can see people,” Tony’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie.
We were heading for the Armenia-Georgia border and driving through some stunning scenery. In the early evening we noticed a succession of abandoned villages. Dozens of houses stripped bare, their windows and doors gaping lonely holes in crumbling brickwork.
Fascinated, we decided to divert to the next one we saw for some filming.
Tony and Zsofi lead our caravan down crater marked road. They were driving Dante, fifty metres ahead of the rest of our convoy.
We carried on up the rough dirt track towards the crumbling ruins of what looked like a ghost town, high in the Armenian hills.
“I say again I can see people,” the walkie burst into life again, putting me on edge, what had we stumbled into?
“There are people here,” the voice from the walkie distorted, paused, then came across loud but calm, “and they have guns.
“There are people coming with guns. Back up people. They have guns.”
The voice didn’t betray a hint of panic, but in Fez, which I was riding with Megan, we slammed on the brakes and squinted through the windshield.
In the distance I could see a man in scruffy shirt and trousers, with someone behind him wearing all green.
Are those fatigues? What is he carrying?
“They are waving at me, they want me to go to them,” warbled the walkie.
“One of them has a gun. I think we should go back.”
Panic in Fez.
Fuck. There was a man with a large gun walking towards Dante.
“I think he wants me to go to him,” came Tony’s still relaxed voice.
“LETS GO. Reverse Tony. Go, go.”
Megan rammed the stick into reverse and little Fez made a horrible scraping sound. We both looked out of the back window. Ziggy was behind us, already reversing, and I could see Lovey and Carlos, by Gunther the Merc, filming the whole thing.
“He has a gun and he wants me to go with him,” said the walkie, still calm.
“Fucking reverse mate, lets go, come on, lets get out of here. Lets go,” was my advice.
But Dante sat motionless.
Thoughts raced through my head.
Do we leave Tony and Zsofi here? Do we stay and face up to this with them? The adrenaline kicked in – fight or flight, but there was certainly no fight option.
I wanted to flee.
“Tony lets go. Come on.”
No movement from Dante.
I watched as the man with the gun reached their car and then broke into a run as he went past it.
He was clearly in my view now. Wearing a metal helmet, green army fatigues, body armour and carrying a machine gun.
Terrorist? Insurgent? Revolutionary? Hostage taker?
The thoughts flew through my head and he was nearly on us.
We weren’t moving and, probably through fear-induced paralysis, it was clear we weren’t leaving Tony behind.
I’ve never been run at by a man with an automatic weapon before.
It is truly frightening.
There was going to be a confrontation, we were in a lot of trouble, but best it be a verbal onslaught than a bullet based discussion.
“Hide the laptops.”
Megan and I began stuffing anything of value in the most obvious of hiding places- under the seats.
The man with the gun ran past us, past Ziggy, and it became clear who the focus of his attention was – Carlos and the camera.
The Merc was fifty yards away, and Carlos hurried towards it to try and stash the camera, but to no avail, we were busted.
The men got out off the car and we went to face our fate.
It quickly became clear they were military, and I found it a relief. I didn’t fancy dealing with insurgents. There was a lot of shouting and radioing. I was worried they were about to bring their cohorts down and march us off.
But a civilian vehicle arrived, and three men stepped out. They too were from the military, but you could immediately tell the difference between them and the squady who’d chased us. They wore loafers not boots, had beer bellies instead of armour plating, caps instead of helmets, and stars on their shoulders. They were officers, and I didn’t know if this meant we were in more trouble or less.
Initially there was shouting, but OJ spoke his simple Russian.
We saw these abandoned villages and thought we’d investigate.
We’re doing a charity trip.
We’re going to Cambodia.
I showed our flier to the man who seemed in charge, but he wasn’t interested and spoke no English.
OJ translated for them:
We had stumbled onto the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Turns out the two nations are still at war.
The villages weren’t ghost towns; they were a war zone.
They hadn’t crumbled under the ravages of time, but been blown apart by Azeri shells.
The hills were fortified by both side’s militaries in a tense stand-off.
Not the ideal location for sightseeing and a spot of filming then?
The officers said that if we had gone further up the dirt road we would have crossed the disputed Armenia-Azerbaijan border.
He said the Azeris would have shot us if they had seen us coming over the hill.
The filming was the biggest issue. We showed the head honcho what we’d shot and he demanded it be erased. We did this by pointing the camera at the ground and filming over it, but when we showed him the result - a three minute film of Armenian rocks- he went into a rage and shouted and demanded it be erased.
So we closed the lens cap and filmed blackness.
Anything but give him the tape, which had some good shots of us driving through the scenic countryside.
Tony passed cigarettes to the officers and they seemed to relax. They looked through our passports and laughed at our stamps, inquired about our Azerbaijani visas, but seemed to accept we were just stupid foreigners, rather than enemy spies.
I didn’t realise at the time, but Megan and Zsofi, who had sensibly opted to stay in the cars, were covertly filming the Armenians with a handy cam.
Megan subtly took a snap of them in the wing mirror of Fez.
After an hour they escorted us back to the main road and sent us on our way.
One of them gave Tony a peach.
Another brush with disaster under our belts.
Ends
mrdanmurdoch@gmail.com
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