Accounts of Anti-Armenian Human Right Violations in Azerbaijan #012                  Prelude to Current Events in Nagorno-Karabakh          +---------------------------------------------------------+         |                                                         |         |  I saw a naked girl with her hair down. They were       |         |  dragging her. She kept falling because they were       |         |  pushing her and kicking her. She fell down, it was     |         |  muddy there, and later other witnesses who saw it from |         |  their balconies told us, they seized her by the hair   |         |  and dragged her a couple of blocks, as far as the      |         |  mortgage bank, that's a good block and a half or two   |         |  from here. I know this for sure because I saw it       |         |  myself.                                                |         |                                                         |         +---------------------------------------------------------+   DEPOSITION OF TATYANA MIKHAILOVNA ARUTUNIAN (NEZHINTSEVA)     Born 1932    Train Conductor    Azerbaijani Railroad     Resident at Building 13/15, Apartment 27    Microdistrict No. 3    Sumgait [Azerbaijan]  I hadn't lived very long in Sumgait, only eight years. I moved there from Novosibirsk. My son entered the Baku Nautical School, and so I transferred to Azerbaijan. Later I met someone and married him, and now my name is Arutunian, my husband's name . . .  That there would be a massacre was not discussed openly, but there were hints  and gibes, so to speak, at the Armenian people, and they were mocking the  Russians, too. I was constantly aware of it at work, and not just this past  year. I couldn't find a definite place for myself in the pool at work because  I, I'll just say it, couldn't steal, couldn't deceive, and couldn't be  involved in bribe-taking. And when I asked for decent working conditions they  told me, "Leave, don't keep the others from working, you aren't cut out for  this kind of work." And at work and around all the time I would hear gibes at  the Armenians, like "The Turks had it right, they killed them all--the way they've multiplied here they're making it hard for us to live," and "Things  will be just fine if we get rid of them all." "No problem, the Turks will  help," they say, "if we ask them, they'll rid Armenia of Armenians in half an  hour." Well that's the way it all was, but I never thought, of course that it  would spill over into a bloody tragedy, because you just couldn't imagine it.  Here we've been living under the Soviet government for 70 years, and no one  even considered such an idea possible.  But I had been forming my own opinions, and in the presence of authoritative  people I would often ask, "Where is this all leading, do people really not see what kind of situation is emerging here. The Russians are fleeing Sumgait,  there are very few of them left. Why is no one dealing with this, what's going on?" And when it all happened on the 27th and 28th, it became clear that  everything had been arranged by someone, because what else are you to make of  it if the First Secretary of the City Party Committee is marching ahead of the demonstration with an Azerbaijani flag? I wouldn't be saying this now if I  hadn't received personal confirmation from him later. Because when we were  under guard in the SK club on the 1st, he came to the club, that Muslimzade.  The women told me, "There he is, there he is, that's Muslimzade." I didn't  believe the rumors that he had carried an Azerbaijani flag. I thought that  they were just false rumors. I went over to him and said, "Are you the First  Secretary of our City Party Committee?" He answers me, "Yes." And I ask him,  "Tell me, did you really march ahead of that gang carrying an Azerbaijani  flag, and behind you they were carrying denigrating signs, I don't know  exactly what they said, but there was mention of Armenian blood?" And he tells me, "Yes, I was there, but I tried to dissuade them from it." Then I asked him another question: "And where were you when they were burning and slaughtering  us? And he said, "I. . . We didn't know what to do, we didn't know, we didn't  anticipate that that would happen in Sumgait."  Comrade Mamedov, the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the  Azerbaijani SSR, answered the same question for me: "No, we actually didn't  anticipate the slaughter in Sumgait. At that time we were trying to contain  the crowd of 45,000 in Baku that was preparing for a massacre." Those are his  exact words, the ones he said in the office of the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR.  And now, about the events themselves. Of course it's painful to discuss them,  because it may seem that it's not true to someone else. Various rumors  concerning what happened are making the rounds: some are true, others aren't.  But unfortunately there are more true ones than false, because it was so  horrible: in our age, here in the space age, the age of science, the age of progress, I don't know, if someone had told me this story, if I were living in or around Moscow, I wouldn't have believed it. Why not? Because it was really  a genocide, it was a massacre. That's genuinely what it was.  For example, on that day, the 28th--I didn't know about the 27th because my  husband and I were both sick, both of us had the flu, and we were in bed--on  the 28th our neighbor comes to our place and says, "You're in bed? You don't  know anything about it? There was a demonstration in town, and after it they  were overturning Armenian cars and burning them. They were looking into cars  and asking, 'Are you an Armenian?' If they answered in Armenian, then they  turned the car over and burned it." This isn't made up, the wife of the Senior Investigator of the Baku Ministry of Internal Affairs told us. He was  returning home from his dacha with his wife, Raisa Sevastyanova, she's my  neighbor. She immediately came and told LIS that they had landed right in the  middle of it, I don't know what to call it, the cavalcade of automobiles they  were stopping. He answered in Azerbaijani, they let them go, but they made him honk the horn, they were kicking up a fracas. We didn't even believe it, and  I said, "Certainly that didn't happen, how can that be?" And she said,  "Muslimzade was leading the crowd, and the Sputnik store was completely smashed because most of the salespeople there are Armenians. And when he saw  that they had started breaking the glass in that store, he said, "Don't break  the shop windows, don't destroy state property, but do whatever else you want. " I didn't hear this with my own two ears, but it is a fact that the store was torn up and the director of the store was beaten for employing Armenians  although he's an Azerbaijani.  While we were talking, all of a sudden right across from us . . . Sevastyanova is the first to look out the window and say, "Look, there's a crowd out  there." And sure enough, when we looked out there we saw that the crowd had  already started wrecking the neighboring building. There was an Armenian  family there, a woman and two girls. They lived across from us. I'm sorry, I  don't know the building number or the people's names, since we were in my  husband's apartment, in Microdistrict 8, and I lived in Microdistrict No. 3.  There was awful looting going on there at the time, the most hideous things  were going on there then. One building there, ours, was attacked twice, once  wasn't enough for them. They returned to the places where they hadn't finished the Armenians off. If an Azerbaijani family dared to conceal Armenians, they  beat the Azerbaijanis too. They also beat Russians, if it was Russians doing  the hiding. Because there were Russians among them, they said so on  television, there were people of various nationalities. But they didn't tell  us why there were people of different nationalities. Because they wouldn't  have touched the Azerbaijanis if they hadn't dared to stick up for the  Armenians and give them temporary shelter in their homes.  At the time I saw this from the window I was there, Sevastyanova was there,  and so was my husband. We went out onto the balcony and saw a television fly  off a balcony. All kinds of things, even a sofa. Then, when it was all down  there, they burned it up. Then we saw the crowd, and they were all oohing. At  first I couldn't figure out what was happening. And later I told my husband,  "Lendrush, l think they're beating someone out there." And he answered, "I  don't know, could be." Suddenly the crowd separated for a moment, and I saw  it, and Raisa Sevastyanova saw it too. My husband had turned the other way,  he didn't see it. I saw a naked girl with her hair down. They were dragging  her. She kept falling because they were pushing her and kicking her. She fell  down, it was muddy there, and later other witnesses who saw it from their  balconies told us, they seized her by the hair and dragged her a couple of  blocks, as far as the mortgage bank, that's a good block and a half or two  from here. I know this for sure because I saw it myself.  Then the crowd rushed toward our building. We were standing there, and you can of course imagine what we were feeling. Were they going to kill us or not? And I also had the awful thought that they might torment me the way they tormented that woman, because I had just seen that.  I asked my husband. I gave him an axe and said, "You kill me first, and then  let them do what they want with the corpse." But our neighbors, it's true,  defended us, they said, "There aren't any Armenians in our entryway, go away,  only Muslims live here." Disaster missed us that time.  But at two o'clock in the morning a crowd of about 15 people, approximately,  came back to our place. My husband was already asleep. He can sleep when he's  upset about something, but I can't. I was standing, running from balcony to  balcony. Our power was out, I don't remember for how long, but it was as  though it had been deliberately turned off. There were no lights whatsoever,  and I was glad, of course. I thought it was better that way. But then I look  and the crowd is at our balcony. This was at 2:15 in the morning. The first  time they were at our building it was 6:30, and now it was 2:15 in the  morning. But I never thought that that old woman on the first floor, the  Azerbaijani, was awake and watching out, there were human beings among them  too. So she goes out with a pail of garbage, as though she needed to be taking garbage out at two o'clock in the morning. She used it as a pretext and went  toward those young people. They really were youngsters. From my balcony you  could see perfectly that they were young Azerbaijani boys. They spoke  Azerbaijani. And when they came up to her she said, "What do you want?" And  they answered, "We want the Armenian family that lives here" [pointing toward  the second floor with their hands]. She says, "I already told you, we don't  have any Armenians here, now leave, do you hear, this is an old Muslim woman  talking to you," and grabbed the hand of one boy who was trying to walk around her and enter the building anyway and started pushing him away. And so they  seemed to listen to her. They were all very young, they started apologizing  and left. That was the second time death was at our door.  I forgot to mention about one other apartment, a man named Rubik lives there,  I don't know him really, I knew his daughter, I mean I saw her around, but we  really didn't know them. But I do know that that guy who lives on the fourth  floor across from our entryway went to Chernobyl and worked there for eight  months, to earn money. Can you imagine what that means? He risked his life to  earn X amount of money in order to better his family. He bought new furniture  and was getting ready to give his daughter's hand in marriage, but, alas, everything was ruined by those creeps and scoundrels. They threw everything  out the windows, and the rest we saw from our balcony: how the neighbors on  the left and right ran into the apartment and carried off everything that  hadn't already been smashed or taken. What is one to think of that? It means  that the parents in those families were in on it too. Unfortunately I came to  be of the opinion that it was all organized and that everything had been  foreseen in advance: both the beating of the Armenians and the stripping of  apartments. Something on the order of "We'll move the Armenians out and take  over their apartments."  I have worked honestly my whole life, you can check everything about me. I  came as a patriot from China, waited for nights on end in front of the  Consulate General of the USSR, I came to my homeland as a patriot because I  knew that the Party and the Komsomol were holy things. But when I saw in  Sumgait that there wasn't anything holy about them, that Party membership was  bought, that Komsomol members joined only for personal gain, that there were  no ideals, no ideas, God save me, everything was being bought and sold, I saw  all of it and understood how they could allow that crap to go on like it did.  I can't talk any more about it . . . the image of that beating . . . When I went out of my own apartment--they picked us up under Soviet Army guard, they  had arrived from all over to suppress that gang--not only Armenians, but some  Russian families and their children, too, came out of their apartments and joined us, because no normal person who had seen that could stay there with  the situation the way it was. And what's interesting is that when we left on  the buses I rode and thought that at least one group of people, for sure  people would basically rise to the situation, would have some compassion for  the Armenians, would somehow understand the injustice of what was done. But  having analyzed and weighed the whole thing, once I calmed down, having  thought it all through, I came to a conclusion that is shared by many people.  If a lot of Azerbaijanis didn't want their Armenian neighbors to be killed,  and that basically depended on that Muslimzade--he said that he had wanted to  calm them down--then is it possible that he didn't have people at hand to whom he could whisper at the last minute, "Go and announce it on television:  Citizens of Sumgait! Take what you can into your hands, let's protect our  neighbors from this massacre?" Those crowds weren't such that there was no  controlling them. Basically they were unarmed. They didn't have firearms,  mostly they had knives, they had all kinds of metal parts, like armature  shafts, sharpened at the ends, special rocks, different to a degree that we  noticed them: there aren't rocks like those in Sumgait soils, they were  brought from somewhere, as though it were all specially planned. So as I was  saying, I weighed it all out and if any of our neighbors had wanted to defend  us, why wasn't it arranged? It means that the government didn't want to do  it. When the crowd was moving from the City Party Committee to the Sputnik,  what, there was no way of informing Baku? No, there was no way, it turns out! The crowd was doing violence in our microdistrict. I won't mention the things  I didn't see myself, I'll only talk about the things I myself witnessed. They  were in Microdistrict 8 beginning at 6 o'clock in the evening, when I saw them from the other building, and they were somewhere else until mid-night or one  o'clock in the morning, because at 2:15 they came back to our building. They hadn't completely finished making their predatory rounds of Microdistrict 8.  When they returned to our building I told my husband, "Lendrush, now the  police are probably going to come, my God, now the authorities are probably  going to find out and come to our aid." Well, alas, no, there were to be no  authorities, not a single policeman, not a single fireman, not a single  ambulance came while they were raging, as it turns out, as we later found out, beginning on the Might of the 27th. There were dead people, ruined apartments, and burned autos: one car near the bus station, it was burned and overturned,  it was probably there about four days, everyone saw it and what went on in  Block 45! Those who live there know, they saw from their balconies how they  attacked the soldiers in the buses, how they beat those poor, unarmed soldiers, and how on that square, I can't remember the name of it, where there is that fork coming from the bus station, that intersection, now I'm upset and I can't think of the name . . . there's a tall building there, a 9-story, and  from the balconies there people saw that butchery, when the poor soldiers,  wearing only helmets, with shields and those unfortunate clubs, moved against  that mob. And when they fell, those 12-to 14-year-old boys ran up and using  stones, big heavy stones, beat them to death on their heads. Who could have  guessed that something like that could happen in the Soviet Union and under  the Soviet government? The upshot is that this republic has not been under  Soviet control for a long time, but no one wanted to pay any attention or get  involved.  If you were to go and ask at my work many people would confirm that I tell the truth, I've been struggling for truth for five years there already, the five  years that I worked at the Azerbaijani railroad. Some people there considered  me a demagogue, others who knows what; some think I'm an adventure seeker, and some, a prankster. But I wanted everything to be right, I would become outraged: how can this be, why is it people treat one another this way on a  Soviet railroad, as though the Azerbaijani railroad were Azerbaijani property, or the property of some magnate, or some "mafia": If I want to, I'll get you  out of here; If I want to, I'll get rid of you; If I want to, I'll do  something else? And there's a black market price for everything, in the most  brazen way: a coach to Moscow costs so much, a coach on a local train costs so much. Once when I was complaining to the head of the conductor's pool, he had  the nerve to tell me, maybe you won't even believe this, but this, I'm afraid, I heard with my own ears: "Tatyana, just how long can you fight for something that you know will never have any effect? You're alone against everyone, so  instead why don't you give more money to the chief conductor, and everything  will go fine for you." I started to cry, turned, and left. What else could I  do, where else could I go to complain? I realized that everything was useless. And the root of the whole thing is that it all goes on and no one wants to see it. I filed a written complaint, and they ground it into dust, they destroyed  it, I still have a copy, but what's the use? When the General Procuracy got  involved with the investigation of the bloody Sumgait affair, in addition to  the information about what I saw, what I was a witness to, I gave testimony  about the mafia at the railroad. They accepted my petition, but I don't know  if they're going to pursue it or not. Because, you'll excuse me, I no longer  believe in the things I aspired to, the things I believed in before: It's all  dead. They just spit on my soul, stomped on everything, physically, and most  important, spiritually, because you can lose belongings, that's nonsense, that all comes with time, but when your soul is spit upon and when the best in  you--your beliefs--are destroyed, it can be very difficult to restore them...  I want to tell of one incident. I just don't know, at the time I was in such a state that I didn't even take minor things into account. Here is an example. Of course, it's not a minor one. My neighbor, Raisa Sevastyanova, she has a son, Valery, who is in the 9th grade in a school in Microdistrict 8. A boy, Vitaly [Danielian], I don't know his last name, goes to school with him, or rather, went to school with him. I was just sitting in an apartment trying to make a phone call to Moscow . . . Oh yes, and there's one important detail: When the massacre began, for two to three hours the phones weren't working in  Armenian apartments, and later, in several Russian and Azerbaijani apartments. But the fact of the matter is that service was shut off, you could not call  anywhere. Why? Again, it means it was all planned. How come service is cut off for no reason? And the lights went off. And those brats were raging as they liked They weren't afraid, they ran about freely, they that no one would slap  their hands and no one would dare to stop them.  They knew it.  Now I'm going to tell about the incident. So this little Vitaly, Vitalik, an Armenian boy, went to school with Valery; they were in the same class.  According to what Valery and his neighbor pal said--at the time I was in the same apartment as they were, I sat at the phone waiting for the call to be put through--a mob attacked the building where Vitalik lived. So Valery ran to his mother and said, "Mamma, please let me go to Vitalik's, what if they kill him? Maybe he's still alive, maybe we can bring him here and save him somehow. . . . He's a nice guy, we all like him, he's a good person, he's smart." His  mother wouldn't let him go. In tears, she says, "Valery, you can't go because  I am afraid." He says, "Mamma, we can get around the crowd. We'll just watch,  just have a look." They made it through. I don't know, I think Vitalik's parents lived in Microdistrict No. 1, and when they got there, they made a  superficial deduction. Knowing that balconies and doors were being broken  everywhere, that you could see from the street which were the Armenian  apartments in the building, they went here and there and looked, and saw that  the windows were intact, and so they calmed down. But even though the windows  in that apartment were not broken, everything inside was totally smashed, and  Vitalik lay there with a broken skull, and his mother and father had already  been murdered. Little Vitalik didn't even know they were dead. So two weeks  ago, I don't know, he was in critical condition, no, maybe it was longer: we  left Sumgait on March 20, spent some time in Moscow, and then we came to  Yerevan. So it's been about a month already; it's so hard to keep all this  straight. So Valery, the next day, when he found out that Vitalik's family has been killed and Vitalik was ling in the Semashko Hospital in Baku, Valery and his classmates got together and went to visit him. But they wouldn't admit  them, telling them that he was in critical condition and that he was still in  a coma. They cried and left, having also found out that the girl I saw being  kicked and dragged was in that hospital too. As it turns out she was brought  there in serious condition, but at least she was alive at the time . . .  When we got to the SK club we would see first one friend and then another,  throw ourselves into their arms and kiss them, because you had wondered if  these friends were alive or not, if those friends were alive or not  . . . And when you saw them you were so glad to find out that the family had lived! When you saw people you heard things that made your hair stand on end.  If you publish everything that happened it will be a hideous book. A book of  things it is even difficult to believe. And those two girls who were raped  were entirely black and blue, the ones at the SK, they know I'm not lying,  that girlfriend came up to one of them and said, "What happened?" and she  bared her breasts, and they were completely covered in cigarette burns . . .  those rogues had put cigarettes out on her breasts. After something like that  I don't know how you can live in a city and look at the people in it.  Now . . . When we stayed at the military unit for a while, they provided, well, basic conditions for us there. The military unit is located in Nasosny, some six miles from Sumgait. And living there we met with a larger group of people. There were about 1,600 people at the unit. You know, there was a point when I couldn't even go outside because if you went outside you saw so much heartbreak around you. And when you hear the false rumors . . .  Yes, by the way, false rumors were spread in Sumgait saying that the Armenians around Yerevan had destroyed Azerbaijani villages and razed them to the ground with bulldozers. I didn't know whether to believe it or not. And people who  don't know any better get the idea that it was all done in revenge. But when  I arrived in Armenia and was in Spitak, and in Spitak all those villages are  not only intact, but at that time had even been protected just in case, they  were guarded, they got better food than did the inhabitants of Spitak. Not a  single person there died, and no one is planning to harm them. Around Yerevan  all the villages are safe and unharmed, and the Armenians didn't attack  anyone. But actually, after an evil of the magnitude suffered in Sumgait there could have been a feeling of vengefulness, but no one acted on it. And I don't know why you sometimes hear accusations to the effect that the Armenians are  guilty, that it is they who organized it. Rumors like that are being spread in Azerbaijan. And if one old person says it and ten young ones hear it, they not only perceive it with their minds, but with their hearts, too. To them it  seems that the older person is telling the truth. For example, one says; "Did  you know that out of 31 people killed (by the way, originally they said 31  people, but later they found a 32nd), 30 were Azerbaijani and one was an  Armenian?"  Of course I'm upset, but it's utterly impossible to discuss such things and not become upset. Sometimes l forget things, but I know I want to return to the time when we were in the SK club across from the City Party Committee. When I saw Muslimzade in the SK club building I went to him to ask because I  couldn't believe that he had marched in the front carrying a banner. I already mentioned this, and if I repeat anything, please excuse me. I asked him, "Why  did you do that and why are you here now, why did you come here? To laugh at  these women who are strewn about on the floor?" The overcrowding there was  tremendous, it was completely unsanitary, and several of the children were already sick. It's true the troops tried to make it livable for us. They  cooked for us on their field stoves and provided us with wonderful food, but  the thing is that their main job was to ferret out the gang that was still at  it everywhere, that was continuing its sordid affairs everywhere. Plus they  were never given any direct orders, they didn't know what they were authorized to do and not to do. And it was only on March 8 at five o'clock in the evening that Krayev himself, the Lieutenant General, the City Commandant of Sumgait,  was given full authority and told everyone over a microphone from an armored  personnel carrier that now he could do what he wanted to do, as his heart  advised him, and relocate people to the military unit.  But that's not what I want to talk about now. Muslimzade, characteristically,  tried to get me out of the SK building and take me to the City Party Committee, which is across the square from the club. He took me by the hand and said, "Citizen, don't worry, we'll go and have a talk in my office. I told him, "No, after everything you've done, I don't believe one iota of  what you say. If I go to the City Party Committee I'll disappear, and the  traces of me will disappear too. Because you can't stand it when . . . " Oh  yes, and there was another interesting detail from that meeting. It was even  very funny, although at the time I wasn't up to laughing. He was in a nice,  expensive hat, and so as to put him to shame, so to speak, I said, "Oh, why  did you come here all duded up like a London dandy, you smell of good perfume, you're in your starched shirt, and you have your expensive hat on. You came to ridicule the poor women and children who are lying on the floor, who are already getting sick, whose relatives have died. Did you come to laugh at them?" And the one who was accompanying him, an Azerbaijani, I don't know who  he was or what his title was, he quickly snatched the hat off Muslimzade's head  and hid it. Then I said, "My God! We're not marauders. We're not you! We  didn't come to you with the intention of stealing!" "Well kill me, kill me!"  Muslimzade says to me, "But I'm not guilty . . . kill me, kill me, but I'm not guilty." And I say, "OK, fine, you're not guilty, have it your way. But give  us an answer, we're asking you: Where were you when they were torturing and  raping those poor women, when they were killing the children, burning things,  carrying on outrageously, and wrecking all those apartments? Where were you  then?" "You know, we didn't expect it, we did not know what to do, we didn't  anticipate that something like that would happen in Sumgait." I started  laughing and said, "It's truly funny." He says, "What could I do? We didn't  know what to do." And I say, "I'm sorry, but it'll be ridiculous if I tell  you: The First Secretary of the City Party Committee shouldn't march out in  front with a banner; he should fall down so that the gang would have to cross  over his dead body. That's what you should have done. That's the way it was  during the war. Not a single party committee secretary compromised himself; either he died or he led people into battle. And what did you do? You ran  away, you left, you hid, you marched with a flag, because you were afraid,  excuse my language, you feared for your own damned hide. And when we ask you,  you tell us that you got confused and you ask me what you could have done?  That's right," I told him, "the City party committee got confused, all the  party committees got confused, the police got confused,. Baku got confused,  they all lay in a faint for two weeks, and the gang ran the show with  impunity. And if it weren't for the troops it wouldn't have been just two  days, there wouldn't be a single Armenian left in Sumgait for sure, they would  have finished their bloody affair, because they brazenly went up to some  Russians, too, the ones who tried to say something to them, and they told  them, 'As soon as we finish with the Armenians we'll come after you, too."  And by the way, there was a colonel, who took us to the military unit. He was the one with the light blue collar tabs who flew in and two hours later arrived on an armored personnel carrier when we were at the  SK and took us to the military unit and who later started moving us from the military unit. We  asked him, "What? How? What will come of us?" He openly said, "You know, for  us the main thing now is to catch that gang. We'll finish that quickly. You'll stay at the military unit for the time being, and we'll decide later." The  General Procuracy of the USSR arrived, it consists of investigators from all  cities. There were some from Stavropol, from everywhere, just everywhere, because  the affair was truly frightful. About this, by the way, Comrade Katusev spoke; as everyone knows, he's the First Deputy General Procurator of the USSR. When  he gave us a speech from the armored personnel carrier at the military unit,  by the way, he told us the honest truth, because he couldn't not say it,  because he was still experiencing his first impressions of what he had seen,  and he said, "There was Afghanistan; and it was bad, but Sumgait--it's horrible! And the people who dared to do such a thing will be severely  punished, in accordance with our laws." And that's a quote. Then one mother  throws herself at him--her two sons had died before her very eyes--and says, "Who will return my sons? Who is going to punish the [culprits]?" They tried  to calm her down, and he said, "In order for us to conduct a proper  investigation, in order that not a single scoundrel avoid responsibility, you  must help us, because we don't know, maybe there was someone else in the gang  who is now being concealed in homes, and maybe the neighbors know, maybe  someone saw something. Don't be afraid, write about it in detail. So that  you're not afraid . . . Everyone knows that many of you are afraid, having  lived through such horrors, they think that if they write the whole truth  about, let's say, their neighbor or someone else, that they will seek revenge  later. We're going to do it like this: We're going to set up an urn and you  can throw what you write in there. We don't need to know who wrote it. The  names of the people who write won't be made public, but we need all the information. Let each and every one not be afraid, let each write what is  necessary, who they saw in that gang, who made threats or shouted threatening  gibes about the Armenians . . . You must describe all of these people and put  the information into the urn."  Two soldiers and a major guarded the urn. And, sure enough, many people,  people who didn't even want to write . . .I know one woman who asked me, she  came up and said, "You, as a Russian, the same thing won't happen to you as  will happen to me. So please . . . I'll give you the information, and you  please write it down for me." So she was afraid, and there were a lot like her . . . But later, after Katusev made his speech, she sat and wrote down everything she knew. And we threw it all into the urn. Now we don't know if  it will be of any use. For a factual picture will emerge from all that  information. One person can lie, but thousands can't lie, thousands simply  can't lie. You have to agree with that, a fact is a fact. Why, for example,  should someone say that black is white if it is really black?     The First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijani SSR, Mamedov, as I said, was in Yerevan. My husband and I were at the Council  of Ministers of the Armenian SSR and found out that Mamedov was present, the  one who had come to convince the people of Sumgait to  return to their  previous dwellings, to their old apartments. We asked for a meeting with him,  and it was granted. When we went to see him he tried to behave properly, very  politely, delicately, but . . . when the truth was told right to his face and  when I asked him some of the same questions I had asked Muslimzade, "Where were you personally when they were beating us? Now you're trying to convince us to  return, why didn't you think at the time that they were slaughtering us where  it was all leading?" he says, "You're telling the truth. Let's not mince  words. You've told me right to my face, and I'll tell you straight. I'll tell  you the pure truth. I was gotten out of bed in the evening, the whole  government was up, including me, and we were restraining a crowd of about  45,000 in Baku. But we never expected that in a city like Sumgait, with its  fine international record, such a thing could happen. We expected it in Baku." I say, "So that means you expected it all the same? Why were you expecting  it?" And he says, "You know, it just happened that way. We were expecting it  in Baku, we were trying to restrain it, but in Sumgait . . . " I say, "Fine,  you didn't know for the first three or four hours, but then you should have  known. Why did no one help us?" And he says, "Well, OK, we didn't know what to do" and things like that. Basically it was the same story I got from  Muslimzade. Later, when he said, "You go on back, the situation in Sumgait is  favorable now, everything is fine, the Armenians are friendly with the  Azerbaijanis . . . " To this l answered, "You know what . . . I'm speaking  with you as a [member of a] neutral nation . . . I have never argued with  Armenians or with Azerbaijanis and I was an eyewitness . . . You tell me,  please, Comrade Mamedov, " I asked him, "What would you say about this honestly, if you were being completely frank with us?" Then he said, "Yes, I  admit that I am honestly ashamed, shame on the entire Azerbaijani nation, we  have disgraced ourselves not only before the entire Soviet Union, but before  the whole world. Because now the Voice of America and all the other foreign  radio stations of various hues are branding us with all kinds of rumors, too." And I say, "There's nothing to add to what really happened. I don't think it's possible to add anything more awful." He says, "Yes, I agree with you, I  understand your pain, it is truly an unfortunate occurrence." I repeat that he said "unfortunate occurrence." And then he suddenly remembered himself, what  he was saying--he had a pen in his hands, he was fidgeting with it nervously-- and said, "Oh, excuse me, a tragedy, really . . . " I take this to mean that  he really thinks it's an "unfortunate occurrence." "And of course," he says,  "I understand that having gone through all this you can't return to Sumgait,  but it's necessary to cool down and realize that all those people are being  tried." And he even gave a detail, which, I don't know if it matters or not,  that 160 policemen were being tried. Specifically in relation to that bloody  affair.  Yes, by the way, there is another good detail, how I was set up at work in Baku after the events. I went to an undergarment plant, there was an  Azerbaijani working there, and suddenly she tells me, "What, they didn't nail your husband? They screwed up." I was floored, I hadn't imagined that anyone in Baku, too, could say something like that. Well after that I went up to see . . . to my office, I needed to find out about those days, what was going to happen with them, how they were going to put down those days from  February 29 to March 10 . . . and the administrator told me, "I don't know,  Tatyana, go to the head of the conductors' pool. Be grateful if they don't  put it down as unexcused absence." I was really discouraged by this. They all  know that we were but a hair away from death and barely survived, and here  they're telling me that I was skipping work, as though I was off enjoying  myself somewhere. I went to the office of the chief of the pool, his last name is Rasulov, and he's had that position for many years. Incidentally, he's a  Party member, and is a big man in town. And suddenly, when I went to him and  said, "Comrade Rasulov, this is the way it was . . . " He looked at me askance and said, "And why are you"--he knows me by my previous last name--"why did you get wrapped up in this mess?" I say, "What do you mean, why did I get  wrapped up in this mess? My husband's an Armenian," I tell him, "I have an  Armenian last name." And he screwed up his face, made a kind of a grimace, as  though he had eaten something sour, and said, "I didn't expect that you would . . . " What did he mean by that? And "how" should he behave, the chief of the pool, a man who supervises 1,700 workers? Now, it's true, there was a  reduction, but for sure there are still 1,200 conductors working for him. And  if someone who supervises a staff that size says things like that, then what  can you expect from a simple, uneducated, politically unsophisticated person?! He's going to believe any and all rumors, that the Armenians are like this,  the Armenians are like that, and so on . . .  By the way, that Mamedov--now I'm going back to Mamedov's office when I asked  him "Are you really going to guarantee the safety of our lives if we return  to Sumgait?" he answered, "Yes, you know, I would guarantee them . . . I don't want to take on too much, I would guarantee them firmly for 50 years. But I  won't guarantee them for longer than 50 years." I say, "So you've got another thing like that planned for 50 years from  now? So they'll be quiet and then  in another 50 years it'll happen again?!" I couldn't contain myself any more, and I also told him, "And how did it get to that point, certainly you knew about it, how they were treating the Russians, for example, in Baku and in  Sumgait, how they were hounded from their jobs? Certainly you received complaints, I wrote some myself. Why did no one respond to them? Why did  everyone ignore what was going on? Didn't you prepare people for this by the  way you treated them?" And he says, "You know, you're finally starting to  insult me!" He threw his pen on the desk. "Maybe now you'll say I'm a  scoundrel too?" I say, "You know, I'm not talking about you because I don't  know. But about the ones who I do know I can say with conviction, yes, that  comrade was involved in this, that, and that, because I know for certain. "Well anyway he assured us that here, in Yerevan, there were false rumors,  that 3,000 Sumgait Armenians were here, and 15,000 were in Sumgait and had  gotten back to work. Everyone was working, he said, and life was very good.  "We drove about the town ourselves, Comrade Arutiunian [First Secretary of  the Communist Party of Armenia SSR] came from the Council of Ministers of  Armenian, he came and brought information showing that everything was fine in Sumgait." When I asked Mamedov how he had reached that conclusion he said, ' "Well, I walked down the street." And I said, "Walking down the street in any  city, even if I were to go to New York, I would never understand the situation because I would be a guest, I don't have any contact with people, but if you  spend 10 days among some blue-collar workers in such a way that they didn't  know you were the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, you'd  hear something quite different." I told him, for example, that I drew my  conclusion when we left the military unit to look at our apartments. They took us all in turns to pick things up, since people had fled to the military unit; they got on the bus just to save themselves as soon as possible. How are the  neighbors in the microdistrict, how will they view us, what do they think? I  thought maybe that in fact it wasn't something general, of a mass nature, some anti-national something. And when that bus took us to our building, because it was the same bus, while we were going up to our apartment, an armed soldier  accompanied us. What does that say? It speaks of the fact that if everything  there were fine, why do we need to have soldiers go there and come back with us, going from apartment to apartment? And in fact, especially with the young  people, you could sense the delight at our misfortune, the grins, and they  were making comments, too. And that was in the presence of troops, when police detachments were in the microdistricts and armored personnel carriers and  tanks were passing by. And if people are taking such malicious delight when  the situation is like that, then what is it going to be like when they  withdraw protection from the city altogether? There will be more outrages, of  course, perhaps not organized, but in the alleys . . .    April 20, 1988   Yerevan  		     - - - reference - - -  [1] _The Sumgait Tragedy; Pogroms against Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijan,     Volume I, Eyewitness Accounts_, edited by Samuel Shahmuradian, forward by     Yelena Bonner, 1990, published by Aristide D. Caratzas, NY, pages 166-177