Belington progressive. [volume] (Belington, W. Va.) 1912-1927, 1921-01-06
MADE FAMOUS BY NOAHy
WANTED u. S. TO MAKE
1T FREE.

One of the states which asked the
United States to be its mandatory Is
Nakhichevan.
If YOU have not heard of Nakhich-
evan, first consult Genesis ga, for
the district in question lies at the
foot of Mt. Ararat, and the town OF
Nakhichevan contains the alleged
graveyard Of Noah. The builder OF
the Ark, local tradition affirms, went
down into the land that sought the
wing of the United States. There he
is said<to have died Of thirst In the
parched plain after his ark had brok-
en- up on the snowy peak of the
worlds most famous mountain.
The Nakhichevan district, inhabited
by Tartars, is bounded on the nortn
by the Armenian district Of Erivan.
Along the south flows the Arax river,
which is the subject Of many an Ar
menian song and which here forms the
boundary between Asiatic Russia and
Persia. In the hills to the northeast
is Shusha, a strong Armenian center,
where the Armenians held out against
a circle of foes in the summer of 1918.
When Russia's power in the Caucasus
declined and the soldats flowed back
from the former Russian front in Tur-
key through the Nakhichevan district,
the traditional hatred between the Ar
menians of the Erivan district and
the Mohammedan Tartars broke out.
This closed the carriage road to
Tabriz and later closed the railway.
At great risk several members of the
American Committee for Armenian
and Syrian Relief, with headquarters
at Erivan, went to Tabriz and brought
back several million roubles in train
that was so crowded with retreat1ng
Russian soldats that one of the COM
mittee members, upholstered with
hundreds Of thousands of roubles, was
forced to sleep on the roof Of the car
In temperature near zero. Within
week the railway service was stopped
by Armenian-Tartar fighting.
The uprising Of the Nakhichevan
Tartars was Ill timed. German propa-
gandists had placarded the district
with posters exhorting these Tartars,
who are related to the Turks and are
of the same religion, to arise against
the Armenians, whom the retreating
Russians had left to their own de-
vices. This they did. But the Ar
menians had spent the winter in rails
ing an army to take over the former
Russian front and about 25,000 Of
,1lx tn
Eriyan.
When the writer crossed the Igdir
plain, where Armenians are starving
today, these much prosecuted people
were having their inning and the
smoke from score of burning Tar
tar villages could be seen. Tartars
with arms were allowed to live II
they surrendered their guns, and
women and children were not touched,
but their villages were looted and
burned by the Armenians. This was
in March, 1919. All the Tartars re-
treated to the Nakhichevan district
where they formed majority of the
population. There they have re-
NAMED Hatred between them and
the Armenians is strong,
The whole problem Is made difficult
by the diversity Of the population. In
the mountain villages. the Kurds are
most numerous. A strong hand will
be necessary to control these several
tribes. The Kurds have been forced
to be butchers by the Turks, who gave
them guns as their only tools, and
who kept agriculture and education
from them. Their condition was as
bad for time as that Of the Arme-
mans, and along the Turko- Russian
boundary scores of Kurds were to be
seen with only one garment and bare
foot at an altitude Of seven thousand
feet, in March.