Accounts of Anti-Armenian Human Right Violations in Azerbaijan #008 Part B                  Prelude to Current Events in Nagorno-Karabakh  				(Part B of #008)        +------------------------------------------------------------------+       |                                                                  |       | "Oh, yes, I just remembered. While they were raping me they      |       |  repeated quite frequently, "Let the Armenian women have babies  |       |  for us, Muslim babies, let them bear Azerbaijanis for the       |       |  struggle against the Armenians." Then they said, "Those         |       |  Muslims can carry on our holy cause. Heroes!" They repeated     |       |  it very often."                                                 |       |                                                                  |       +------------------------------------------------------------------+  ...continued from PART A:  The six of them left. They left and I had an attack. I realized that the dan- ger was past, and stopped controlling myself. I relaxed for a moment and the  physical pain immediately made itself felt. My heart and kidneys hurt. I had  an awful kidney attack. I rolled back and forth on top of those Christmas ornaments, howling and howling. I didn't know where I was or how long this  went on. When we figured out the time, later it turned out that I howled and  was in pain for around an hour. Then all my strength was gone and I burst into tears, I started feeling sorry for myself, and so on and so forth . . .  Then someone came into the room. I think I hear someone calling my name. I  want to respond and restrain myself, I think that I'm hallucinating. I am  silent, and then it continues: it seems that first a man's voice is calling me, then a woman's. Later I found out that Mamma had sent our neighbor, the one whose apartment she was hiding in, Uncle Sabir Kasumov, to our place,  telling him, "I know that they've killed Lyuda. Go there and at least bring  her corpse to me so they don't violate her corpse." He went and returned empty handed, but Mamma thought he just didn't want to carry the corpse into his  apartment. She sent him another time, and then sent his wife, and they were  walking through the rooms looking for me, but I didn't answer their calls.  There was no light, they had smashed the chandeliers and lamps.  They started the pogrom in our apartment around five o'clock, and at 9:30 I  went down to the Kasumovs'. I went down the stairs myself. I walked out of the apartment: how long can you wait for your own death, how long can you be  cowardly, afraid? Come what will. I walked out and started knocking on the  doors one after the next. No one, not on the fifth floor, not on the fourth,  opened the door. On the third floor, on the landing of the stairway, Uncle  Sabir's son started to shout, "Aunt Roza, don't cry, Lyuda's alive!" He  knocked on his own door and out came Aunt Tanya, Igor, and after them, Mamma.  Aunt Tanya, Uncle Sabir's wife, is an Urdmurt. All of us were in their  apartment. I didn't see Karina, but she was in their home, too, Lying delirious, she had a fever. Marina was there too, and my father and mother. All of my family had gathered there.     At the door I lost consciousness. Igor and Aunt Tanya carried me into the apartment.  Later I found out what they had done to our Karina. Mamma said, "Lyuda,  Karina's in really serious condition, she's probably dying. If she recognizes  you, don't cry, don't tell her that her face looks so awful." It was as though her whole face was paralyzed, you know, everything was pushed over to one  side, her eye was all swollen, and everything flowed together, her lips, her  cheeks . . . It was as though they had dragged her right side around the whole microdistrict, that's how disfigured her face was. I said, "Fine." Mamma was  afraid to go into the room, because she went in and hugged Karina and started  to cry. I went in. As soon as I saw her my legs gave way. I fell down near the bed, hugged her legs and started kissing them and crying. She opened the eye  that was intact, looked at me, and said, "Who is it?" But I could barely talk,  my whole face was so badly beaten. I didn't say, but rather muttered something tender, something incomprehensible, but tender, "My Karochka, my Karina, my  little golden one . . . " She understood me.  Then Igor brought me some water, I drank it down and moistened Karina's lips.  She started to groan. She was saying something to me, but I couldn't  understand it. Then I made out, "It hurts, I hurt all over." Her hair was  glued down with blood. I stroked her forehead, her head, she had grit on her  forehead, and on her lips . . . She was groaning again, and I don't know how  to help her. She calls me over with her hand, come closer. I go to her. She's saying something to me, but I can't understand her. Igor brings her a pencil  and paper and says, "Write it down." She shakes her head as if to say, no, I  can't write. I can't understand what she's saying. She wanted to tell me  something, but she couldn't. I say, "Karina, just lie there a little while, then maybe you'll feel better and you can tell me then." And then she says, "Maybe it'll be too late." And I completely . . . just broke down, I couldn't control myself.  Then I moistened my hand in the water and wiped her forehead and eye. I dipped a handkerchief into the water and squeezed a little water onto her lips. She  says, "Lyuda, we're not saved yet, we have to go somewhere else. Out of this  damned house. They want to kill us, I know. They'll find us here, too. We need to call Urshan." She repeated this to me for almost a whole hour, Until I  understood her every word. I ask, "What's his number?" Urshan Feyruzovich,  that's the head of the administration where she works. "We have to call him."  But I didn't know his home number. I say, "Karina, what's his number?" She  says, "I can't remember." I say, "Who knows his number? Who can I call?" She  says, "I don't know anything, leave me alone."  I went out of the room. Igor stayed to watch over her and sat there, he was  crying, too. I say, "Mamma, Karina says that we have to call Urshan. How can  we call him? Who knows his telephone number?" I tell Marina, "Think, think,  who can we call to find out?" She started calling; several people didn't  answer. She called a girlfriend, her girlfriend called another girlfriend and  found out the number and called us back. The boss's wife answered and said he  was at the dacha. My voice keeps cracking, I can't talk normally. She says,  "Lyuda, don't panic, get a hold of yourself, go out to those hooligans and  tell them that they just can't do that." She still didn't know what was really going on. I said, "It's easy for you to say that, you don't understand what's  happening. They are killing people here. I don't think there is a single  Armenian left in the building, they've cut them all up. I'm even surprised  that we managed to save ourselves. "She says, "Well, OK, if it's that serious  . . . " And all the same she's thinking that my emotions are all churned up  and that I'm fearing for my life, that in fact it's not all that bad. "OK,  fine, fine," she says, "if you're afraid, OK, as soon as Urshan comes back  I'll send him over."  We called again because they had just started robbing the apartment directly  under Aunt Tanya's, on the second floor, Asya Dallakian's apartment. She  wasn't home, she was staying with her daughter in Karabagh. They destroyed  everything there . . . We realized that they still might come back. We kept on trying to get through to Aunt Tanya--Urshan's wife is named Tanya too and  finally we get through. She says, "Yes, he's come home, he's leaving for your  place now." He came. Of course he didn't know what was happening, either,  because he brought two of his daughters with him. He came over in his jeep  with his two daughters, like he was going on an outing. He came and saw what  shape we were in and what was going on in town and got frightened. He has  grown up daughters, they're almost my age.  The three of us carried out Karina, tossed a coat on her and a warm scarf, and went down to his car. He took Karina and me to the Maternity Home. . . No,  first they took us to the po]ice precinct. They had stretchers ready. As soon as we got out of the car they put Karina and me on stretchers and said that we were in serious condition and that we mustn't move, we might have fractures. From the stretcher I saw about 30 soldiers sitting and lying on the first floor, bandaged, on the concrete floor, groaning . . . This was around eleven o'clock at night. We had left the house somewhere around 1:30. When I  saw those soldiers I realized that a war was going on: soldiers, enemies . . . everything just like a war.  They carried me into some office on the stretcher. The emergency medical people from Baku were there. The medical attendant there was an older  Armenian. Urshan told him what they had done to Karina because she's so proud  she would never have told. And this aging Armenian . . . his name was Uncle  Arkady, I think, because someone said "Arkady, get an injection ready," he  started to fill a syringe, and turned around so as to give Karina a shot. But  when he looked at her face he became ill. And he was an old man, in his  sixties, his hair was all grey, and his moustache, too. He hugged Karina and  started to cry: "What have they done to you?!" He was speaking Armenian. "What have they done to you?!" Karina didn't say anything. Mamma came in then, and  she started to cry, too. The man tried to calm her. "I'll give you a shot."  Mamma tells him, "I don't need any shot. Where is the government? Just what  are they doing? Look what they've done to my children! They're killing people, and you're just sitting here!" Some teacups were standing on the table in  there. "You're sitting here drinking tea! Look what they've done to my  daughters! Look what they've turned them into!" They gave her something to  drink, some heart medicine, I think. They gave Karina an injection and the doctor said that she had to be taken to the Maternity Home immediately. Papa  and Urshan, I think, even though Papa was in bad shape, helped carry Karina  out. When they put her on the stretcher, none of the medics got near her. I  don't know, maybe there weren't any orderlies. Then they came to me: "What's  the matter with you?" Their tone was so official that I wrapped myself tighter in the half-length coat. I had a blanket on, too, an orange one, Aunt Tanya's. I said, "I'm fine." Uncle Arkady came over and was soothing me, and then told  the doctor, "You leave, let a woman examine her." A woman came, an  Azerbaijani, I believe, and said, "What's wrong with you?" I was wearing my  sister Lyuda's nightshirt, the sister who at this time was in Yerevan. When  she was nursing her infant she had cut out a big hole in it so that it would  be easier to breast feed the baby. I tore the night shirt some more and showed her. I took it off my shoulders and turned my back to her. There was a huge  wound, about the size of a hand, on my back, from the Indian vase. She said  something to them and they gave me two shots. She said that it should be  dressed with something, but that they'd do that in the hospital.  They put me on a stretcher, too. They started looking for people to carry me.  I raised up my head a little and wanted to sit up, and this woman, I don't  know if she was a doctor or a nurse, said, "Lie still, you mustn't move." When I was lying back down I saw two policemen leading a man. His profile seemed  very familiar to me. I shouted, "Stop!" One of the policemen turned and says,  "What do you want?" I say, "Bring him to me, I want to look at him." They  brought him over and I said, "That person was just in our apartment and he  just raped me and my sister. I recognize him, note it down." They said,  "Fine," but didn't write it down and led him on. I don't know where they were  taking him.  Then they put my stretcher near where the injured and beaten soldiers were  sitting. They went to look for the ambulance driver so he would bring the car  up closer. One of the soldiers started talking to me, "Sister . . . " I don't  remember the conversation exactly, but he asked me were we lived and what they did to us. I asked him, "Where are you from?" He said that he was from Ufa.  Apparently they were the first that were brought in. The Ufa police. Later I  learned that they suffered most of all. He says, "OK, you're Armenians, they  didn't get along with you, but I'm a Russian," he says, "what are they trying  to kill me for?" Oh, I remembered something else. When I went out onto the  balcony with Kuliyev for a hammer and nails I looked out the window and saw  two Azerbaijanis beating a soldier near the kindergarten. He was pressed  against the fence and he covered his head with his arms, they were beating him with his own club. The way he cried "Mamma" made my skin crawl. I don't know  what they did to him, if he's still alive or not. And something else. Before  he attack on our house we saw sheets, clothes, and some dishes flying from the third or fourth floor of the neighboring building, but I didn't think it was  Azerbaijanis attacking Armenians. I thought that something was on fire or they were throwing something they didn't need out, or someone was fighting with  someone. It was only later, when they were burning a passenger car in the  yard, when the neighbors said that they were doing that to the Armenians, that I realized that this was serious, that it was anti-Armenian.  They took Karina and me to the Sumgait Maternity Home. Mamma went to them too  and said, "I've been beaten too, help me." But they just ignored her. My  father went to them and said in a guilty voice, as though it was his fault  that he'd been beaten, and says, "My ribs hurt so much, those creeps have  probably broken my ribs. Please look at them." The doctor says, "That's not my job." Urshan said, "Fine, I'll take you to my place and if we need a doctor,  I'll find you one. I'll bring one and have him look at you. And he drove them  to his apartment.  Marina and I stayed there. They examined us. I was more struck by what the  doctor said than by what those Azerbaijanis in our apartment did to us. I  wasn't surprised when they beat us they wanted to beat us, but I was very surprised that in a Soviet medical facility a woman who had taken the Hippocratic Oath could talk to victims like that. By happy--or unhappy-- coincidence we were seen by the doctor that had delivered our Karina. And she, having examined Karina, said, "No problem, you got off pretty good. Not like  they did in Kafan, when you Armenians were killing and raping our women. "Karina was in such terrible condition that she couldn't say anything--she would certainly have had something to say! Then they examined me. The same  story. They put us in a separate ward. No shots, no medicinal powders, no  drugs. Absolutely none! They didn't even give us tea. All the women there soon found out that in ward such and such were Armenians who had been raped. And they started coming and peering through the keyhole, the way people look at  zoo animals. Karina didn't see this, she was lying there, and I kept her from  seeing it.  They put Ira B. in our ward. She had also been raped. True, she didn't have  any serious bodily injuries, but when she told me what had happened at their  place, I felt worse for them than I did for us. Because when they raped Ira  her daughter was in the room, she was under the bed on which it happened. And Ira was holding her daughter's hand, the one who was hiding under the bed. When they were beating Ira or taking her earrings off, gold, when she  involuntarily let go of her daughter's hand, her daughter took her hand again. Her daughter is in the fourth grade, she's 11 years old. I felt really awful  when I heard that. Ira asked them not to harm her daughter, she said, "Do what you want with me, just leave my daughter alone." Well, they did what they  wanted. They threatened to kill her daughter if she got in their way. Now I  would be surprised if the criminals had behaved any other way that night. It  was simply Bartholomew's Night, I say, they did what they would love to do  every day: steal, kill, rape . . .  Many are surprised that those animals didn't harm the children. The beasts  explained it like this: this would be repeated in 15 to 20 years, and those  children would be grown, and then, as they put it, "we'll come take the  pleasure out of their lives, those children." This was about the girls that would be young women in 15 years. They were thinking about their tomorrow  because they were sure that there would be no trial and no investigation, just as there was no trial or investigation in 1915, and that those girls could be  of some use in 15 years. This I heard from the investigators; one of the  victims testified to it. That's how they described their own natures, that they would still be bloodthirsty in 15 to 20 years, and in 100 years--they themselves said that.  And this, too. Everyone is surprised that they didn't harm our Marina. Many  people say that they either were drunk or had smoked too much. I don't know  why their eyes were red. Maybe because they hadn't slept the night before,  maybe for some other reason, I don't know. But they hadn't been smoking and  they weren't drunk, I'm positive, because someone who has smoked will stop at  nothing he has the urge to do. And they spoke in a cultured fashion with  Marina: "Little sister, don't be afraid, we won't harm you, don't look over  there [where I was], you might be frightened. You're a Muslim, a Muslim woman  shouldn't see such things." So they were really quite sober . . .  So we came out of that story alive. Each every day we have lived since it all  happened bears the mark of that day. It wasn't even a day, of those several  hours. Father still can't look us in the eyes. He still feels guilty for what happened to Karina, Mother, and me. Because of his nerves he's started talk- ing to himself, I've heard him argue with himself several times when he thought no one is listening: "Listen," he'll say, "what could I do? What could I do alone, how could I protect them?" I don't know where to find the words, it's not that I'm happy, but I am glad that he didn't see it all happen.  That's the only thing they spared us . . . or maybe it happened by chance. Of  course he knows it all, but there's no way you could imagine every last detail of what happened. And there were so many conversations: Karina and I spoke together in private, and we talked with Mamma, too. But Father was never present at those conversations. We spare him that, if you can say that. And when the investigator comes to the house, we don't speak with Father present.  On February 29, the next clay, Karina and I were discharged from the hospital. First they released me, but since martial law had been declared in the city,  the soldiers took me to the police precinct in an armored personnel carrier.  There were many people there, Armenian victims. I met the Tovmasian family  there. From them I learned that Rafik and their Uncle Grant had died. They  were sure that both had died. They were talking to me and Raya, Rafik's wife  and Grant's daughter, and her mother, were both crying.  Then they took us all out of the office on the first floor into the yard. There's a little one-room house outside there, a recreation and reading area. They took us in there. The women were afraid to go because they thought that they were shooing us out of the police precinct because it had become so dangerous that even the people working at the precinct wanted to hide. The women were shouting. They explained to them: "We want to hide you better because it's possible there will be an attack on the police precinct."  We went into the little house. There were no chairs or tables in there. We had children with us and they were hungry; we even had infants who needed to  have their diapers changed. No one had anything with them. It was just awful.  They kept us there for 24 hours. From the window of the one room house you  could see that there were Azerbaijanis standing on the fences around the  police precinct, as though they were spying on us. The police precinct is  surrounded by a wall, like a fence, and it's electrified, but if they were  standing on the wall, it means the electricity was shut off. This brought  great psychological pressure to bear on us, particularly on those who hadn't  just walked out of their apartments, but who hadn't slept for 24 hours, or 48, or those who had suffered physically and spiritually, the ones who had lost  family members. For us it was another ordeal. We were especially frightened  when all the precinct employees suddenly disappeared. We couldn't see a single person, not in the courtyard and not in the windows. We thought that they must have already been hiding under the building, that they must have some secret  room down there. People were panicking: they started throwing themselves at one another . . . That's the way it is on a sinking ship. We heard those  people, mainly young people, whistling and whopping on the walls. We felt that the end was approaching. I was completely terrified: I had left Karina in the  hospital and didn't know where my parents were. I was sort of calm about my  parents, I was thinking only about Karina, if, Heaven forbid, they should  attack the hospital, they would immediately tell them that there was an  Armenian in there, and something terrible would happen to Karina again, and  she wouldn't be able to take it.  Then soldiers with dogs appeared. When they saw the dogs some of the people  climbed down off the fence. Then they brought in about another 30 soldiers. They all had machine guns in readiness, their fingers on the triggers. We  calmed down a little. They brought us chairs and brought the children some  little cots and showed us where we could wash our hands, and took the children to the toilet. But we all sat there hungry, but to be honest, it would never  have occurred to any of us that we hadn't eaten for two days and that people  do eat.  Then, closer to nightfall, they brought a group of detained criminals. They  were being watched by soldiers with guard dogs. One of the men came back from  the courtyard and told us about it. Raya Tovmasian . . . it was like a  different woman had been substituted. Earlier she had been crying, wailing,  and calling out: "Oh, Rafik!," but when she heard about this such a rage came  over her! She jumped up, she had a coat on, and she started to roll up her  sleeves like she was getting ready to beat someone. And suddenly there were  soldiers, and dogs, and lots of people. She ran over to them. The bandits were standing there with their hands above their heads facing the wall. She went up to one of them and grabbed him by the collar and started to shake and thrash  him! Then, on to a second, and a third. Everyone was rooted to the spot. Not  one of the soldiers moved, no one went up to help or made her stop her from  doing it. And the bandits fell down and covered their heads with their hands,  muttering something. She came back and sat down, and something akin to a smile appeared on her face. She became so quiet: no tears, no cries. Then that round was over and she went back to beat them again. She was walking and cursing  terribly: take that, and that, they killed my husband, the bastards, the  creeps, and so on. Then she came back again and sat down. She probably did  this the whole night through, well, it wasn't really night, no one slept. She  went five or six times and beat them and returned. And she told the women,  "What are you sitting there for? They killed your husbands and children, they  raped, and you're just sitting there. You're sitting and talking as though  nothing had happened. Aren't you Armenians?" She appealed to everyone, but no  one got up. I was just numb, I didn't have the strength to beat anyone, I  could barely hold myself up, all the more so since I had been standing for so  many hours--I was released at eleven o'clock in the morning and it was already after ten at night because there weren't enough chairs, really it was the  elderly and women with children who sat. I was on my feet the whole time.  There was nothing to breathe, the door was closed, and the men were smoking.  The situation was deplorable.  At eleven o'clock at night policemen came for us, local policemen,  Azerbaijanis. They said, "Get up. They've brought mattresses, you can wash up and put the children to bed." Now the women didn't want to leave this place,  either. The place had become like home, it was safe, there were soldiers with  dogs. If anyone went outside, the soldiers would say, "Oh, it's our little  family," and things like that. The soldiers felt this love, and probably, for  the first time in their lives perceived themselves as defenders. Everyone spoke from the heart, cried, and hugged them and they, with their loaded machine guns in their hands, said, "Grandmother, you mustn't approach me, I'm on guard." Our people would say, "Oh, that's all right." They hugged them, one woman even kissed one of the machine guns. This was all terribly moving for me. And the small children kept wanting to pet the dogs.  They took us up to the second floor and said, "You can undress and sleep in  here. Don't be afraid, the precinct is on guard, and it's quiet in the city." This was the 29th, when the killing was going on in block 41A and in other places. Then we were told that all the Armenians were being gathered at the SK club and at the City Party Committee. They took us there. On the way I  asked them to stop at the Maternity Home: I wanted to take Karina with me. I didn't know what was happening there. They told me, "Don't worry, the Maternity Home is full of soldiers, more than mothers-to-be. So you can rest assured. I say, "Well, I won't rest assured regardless, because the staff in there is capable of anything."  When I arrived at the City Party Committee it turned out that Karina had already been brought there. They had seen fit to release her from the hospi- tal, deciding that she felt fine and was no longer in need of any care. Once we were in the City Party Committee we gave free reign to our tears. We met  acquaintances, but everyone was somehow divided into two groups, those who  hadn't been injured, who were clothed, who had brought a pot of food with  them, and so on, and those, like me, like Raya, who were wearing whatever had  come their way. There were even people who were all made up, dolled up like  they had come from a wedding. There were people without shoes, naked people,  hungry people, those who were crying, and those who had lost someone. And of  course the stories and the talk were flying: "Oh, I heard that they killed  him!" "What do you mean they killed him!" "He stayed at work!" "Do you know  what's happening at this and such a plant? Talk like that.  And then I met Aleksandr Mikhailovich Gukasian, the teacher. I know him very  well and respect him highly. I've known him for a long time. They had a small  room, well really it was more like a study-room. We spent a whole night  talking in that study once. On March 1 we heard that Bagirov [First Secretary  of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan SSR] had arrived. Everyone ran to see  Bagirov, what news he had brought with him and how this was all being viewed  from outside. He arrived and everyone went up to him to talk to him and ask  him things. Everyone was in a tremendous rage. But he was protected by  soldiers, and he went up to the second floor and didn't deign to speak with  the people. Apparently he had more important things to do.  Several hours passed. Gukasian called me and says, "Lyudochka, find another  two or three. We're going to make up lists, they asked for them upstairs,  lists of the dead, those whose whereabouts are unknown, and lists of people  who had pogroms of their apartments and of those whose cars were burned." I  had about 50 people in my list when they called me and said, "Lyuda, your  Mamma has arrived, she's looking for you, she doesn't believe that you are  alive and well and that you're here." I gave the lists to someone and asked  them to continue what I was doing and went off.  The list was imprecise, of course. It included Grant Adamian, Raya Tovmasian's father, who was alive, but at the time they thought him dead. There was Engels Grigorian's father and aunt, Cherkez and Maria. The list also included the  name of my girlfriend and neighbor, Zhanna Agabekian. One of the guys said  that he had been told that they chopped her head off in the courtyard in front of the Kosmos movie theater. We put her on the list too, and cried, but later  it turned out that that was just a rumor, that in fact an hour earlier she had somehow left Sumgait for the marina and from there had set sail for  Krasnovodsk, where, thank God, she was alive and well. I should also say that  in addition to those who died that list contained people who were rumored  missing or who were so badly wounded that they were given up for dead.                                                                 3  All the lists were taken to Bagirov. I don't remember how many dead were  contained in the list, but it's a fact that when Gukasian came in a couple  of minutes later he was cursing and was terribly irate. I asked, "What's  going on?" He said, "Lyuda, can you imagine what animals, what scoundrels they are! They say that they lost the list of the dead. Piotr Demichev [Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR] has just arrived, and we were supposed to submit the list to him, so that he'd see the scope of the slaughter, of the tragedy, whether it was one or fifty." They told him that the list had disappeared and they should ask everyone who hadn't left for the Khimik boarding house all over again. There were 26 people on our second list. I think that the number 26 was the one that got into the press and onto television and the radio, because that's the list that Demichev got. I remember exactly that there were 26  people on the list, I had even told Aleksandr Mikhailovich that that was only  a half of those that were on the first list. He said, "Lyuda, please, try to remember at least one more." But I couldn't remember anyone else. But there were more than 30 dead. Of that I am certain. The government and the Procuracy don't count the people who died of fright, like sick people and old people  whose lives are threatened by any shock. They weren't registered as victims of the Sumgait tragedy. And then there may be people we didn't know. So many  people left Sumgait between March 1 and 8! Most of them left for smaller towns in Russia, and especially to the Northern Caucasus, to Stavropol, and the  Krasnodarsk Territory. We don't have any information on them. I know that  there are people who set out for parts around Moscow. In the periodical  Krestyanka [Woman Farmer] there was a call for people who know how to milk  cows, and for mechanics, and drivers, and I know a whole group of people went  to help out. Also clearly not on our list are those people who died entering the city, who were burned in their cars. No one knows about them, except the  Azerbaijanis, who are hardly likely to say anything about it. And there's more. A great many of the people who were raped were not included in the list  drawn up at the Procuracy. I know of three instances for sure, and I of course don't know them all. I'm thinking of three women whose parents chose not to  publicize what had happened, that is, they didn't take the matter to court,  they simply left. But in so doing they didn't cease being victims. One of them is the first cousin of my classmate Kocharian. She lived in Microdistrict No.  8, on the fifth floor. I can't tell you the building number and I don't know  her name. Then comes the neighbor of one of my relatives, she lived in  Microdistrict 1 near the gift shop. I don't know her name, she lives on the  same landing as the Sumgait procurator. They beat her father, he was holding  the door while his daughter hid, but he couldn't hold the door forever, and  when she climbed over the balcony to the neighbors' they seized her by her  braid. Like the Azerbaijanis were saying, it was a very cultured mob, because  they didn't kill anyone, they only raped them and left. And the third one  . . . I don't remember who the third one was anymore.  They transferred us on March 1. Karina still wasn't herself. Yes, we lived for days in the SK, in the cultural facility, and at the Khimik. They lived there  and I lived at the City Party Committee because I couldn't stay with Karina;  it was too difficult for me, but I was at peace: she had survived. I could  already walk, but really it was honest words that held me up. Thanks to the  social work I did there, I managed to persevere. Aleksandr Mikhailovich said,  "If it weren't for the work I would go insane." He and I put ourselves in gear and took everything upon ourselves: someone had an infant and needed diapers  and free food, and we went to get them. The first days we bought everything,  although we should have received it for free. They were supposed to have been  dispensed free of charge, and they sold it to us. Then, when we found out it  was free, we went to Krayev. At the time, fortunately, you could still drop by to see him like a neighbor, all the more so since everything was still clearly visible on our faces. Krayev sent a captain down and he resolved the issue.  On March 2 they sent two investigators to see us: Andrei Shirokov and Vladimir Fedorovich Bibishev. The way it worked out, in our family they had considered  only Karina and me victims, maybe because she and I wound up in the hospital. Mother and Father are considered witnesses, but not victims.  Shirokov was involved with Karina's case, and Bibishev, with mine. After I  told him everything, he and I planned to sit down with the identikit and record everyone I could remember while everything was still fresh in my mind.  We didn't work with the identikit until the very last day because the conditions weren't there. The investigative group worked slowly and did poor  quality work solely because the situation wasn't conducive to working: there  weren't enough automobiles, especially during the time when there was a  curfew, and there were no typewriters for typing transcripts, and no still or  video cameras. I think that this was done on purpose. We're not so poor that  we can't supply our investigators with all that stuff. It was done especially  to draw out the investigation, all the more so since the local authorities saw that the Armenians were leaving at the speed of light, never to return to  Sumgait. And the Armenians had a lot to say I came to an agreement with  Bibishev, I told him myself, "Don't you worry, if it takes us a month or two  months, I'll be here. I'm not afraid, I looked death in the eyes five times in those two days, I'll help you conduct the investigation."  He and I worked together a great deal, and I used this to shelter Karina, I gave them so much to do that for a while they didn't have the time to get to her, so that she would at least have a week or two to get back to being her- self. She was having difficulty breathing so we looked for a doctor to take x- rays. She couldn't eat or drink for nine days, she was nauseous. I didn't eat and drank virtually nothing for five days. Then, on the fifth day, when we were in Baku already, the investigator told me, "How long can you go on like  this? Well fine, so you don't want to eat, you don't love yourself, you're not taking care of yourself, but you gave your word that you would see this investigation through. We need you." Then I started eating, because in fact I was exhausted. It wasn't enough that I kept seeing those faces in our apart- ment in my mind, every day I went to the investigative solitary confinement cells and prisons. I don't know . . . we were just everywhere! Probably in every prison in the city of Baku and in all the solitary confinement cells of Sumgait. At that time they had even turned the drunk tank into solitary  confinement.  Thus far I have identified 31 of the people who were in our apartment. Mamma  identified three, and Karina, two. The total is 36. Marina didn't identify  anyone, she remembers the faces of two or three, But they weren't among the  photographs of those detained. I told of the neighbor I recognized. The one  who went after the axe. He still hasn't been detained, he's still on the  loose. He's gone, and it's not clear if he will be found or not. I don't know  his first or last name. I know which building he lived in and I know his  sisters' faces. But he's not in the city. The investigators informed me that  even if the investigation is closed and even if the trial is over they will  continue looking for him.  The 31 people I identified are largely blue-collar workers from various  plants, without education, and of the very lowest level in every respect. Mostly their ages range from 20 to 30 years; there was one who was 48. Only one of them was a student. He was attending the Azerbaijan Petroleum and Chemical Institute in Sumgait, his mother kept trying to bribe the investiga- tor. Once, thinking that I was an employee and not a victim, she said in front of me "I'll set you up a restaurant worth 500 rubles and give you 600 in cash simply for keeping him out of Armenia," that is, to keep him from landing in a prison on Armenian soil. They're all terribly afraid of that, because if the investigator is talking with a criminal and the criminal doesn't confess even though we identified him, they tell him--in order to apply psychological pressure--they say, "Fine, don't confess, just keep silent. When you're in an Armenian prison, when they find out who you are, they'll take care of you in short order." That somehow gets to them. Many give in and start to talk.  The investigators and I were in our apartment and videotaped the entire pogrom of our apartment, as an investigative experiment. It was only then that I saw the way they had left our apartment. Even without knowing who was  in our apartment, you could guess. They stole, for example, all the money and  all the valuables, but didn't take a single book. They tore them up, burned  them, poured water on them, and hacked them with axes. Only the Materials from the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and James  Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohigans. Oh yes, lunch was ready, we were  boiling a chicken, and there were lemons for tea on the table. After they had  been in our apartment, both the chicken and the lemons were gone. That's  enough to tell you what kind of people were in our apartment, people who don't even know anything about books. They didn't take a single book, but they did  take worn clothing, food, and even the cheapest of the cheap, worn-out  slippers.  Of those whom I identified, four were Kafan Azerbaijanis living in Sumgait.  Basically, the group that went seeking "revenge"--let's use their word for  it--was joined by people seeking easy gain and thrill-seekers. I talked with  one of them. He had gray eyes, and somehow against the back-drop of all that  black I remembered him specifically because of his of his eyes. Besides taking part in the pogrom of our apartment, he was also involved in the murder of  Tamara Mekhtiyeva from Building 16. She was an older Armenian who had recently arrived from Georgia, she lived alone and did not have anyone in Sumgait. I  don't know why she had a last name like that, maybe she was married to an  Azerbaijani. I had laid eyes on this woman only once or twice, and know  nothing about her. I do know that they murdered her in her apartment with an  axe. Murdering her wasn't enough for them. They hacked her into pieces and  threw them into the tub with water.  I remember another guy really well too, he was also rather fair-skinned. You  know, all the people who were in our apartment were darker than dark, both  their hair and their skin. And in contrast with them, in addition to the grey- eyed one, I remember this one fellow, the one l took to be a Lezgin. I  identified him. As it turned out he was Eduard Robertovich Grigorian, born in the city of Sumgait, and he had been convicted twice. One of our own. How  did I remember him? The name Rita was tattooed on his left or right hand. I  kept thinking, is that Rita or "puma," which it would be if you read the word  as Latin characters instead of Cyrillic, because the Cyrillic "T" was the one  that looks like a Latin "M." When they led him in he sat with his hands behind his back. This was at the confrontation. He swore on every holy book, tried to put in an Armenian word here and there to try and spark my compassion, and  told me that I was making a mistake, and called me "dear sister." He said,  "You're wrong, how could I, an Armenian, raise my hand against my own, an  Armenian," and so on. He spoke so convincingly that even the investigator  asked me, "Lyuda, are you sure it was he?" I told him, "I'll tell you one more identifying mark. If I'm wrong I shall apologize and say I was mistaken. The  name Rita is tattooed on his left or right hand." He went rigid and became  pale. They told him, "Put your hands on the table." He put his hands on the table with the palms up. I said, "Now turn your hands over," but he didn't  turn his hands over. Now this infuriated me. If he had from the very start acknowledged his guilt and said that he hadn't wanted to do it, that they  forced him or something else, I would have treated him somewhat differently. But he insolently stuck to his story, "No, I did not do anything, it wasn't  me." When they turned his hands over the name Rita was in fact tattooed on his hand. His face distorted and he whispered something wicked. I immediately flew into a rage. There was an ashtray on the table, a really heavy one, made out  of granite or something, very large, and it had ashes and butts in it.  Catching myself quite by surprise, I hurled that ashtray at him. But he ducked and the ashtray hit the wall, and ashes and butts rained down on his head and  back. And he smiled. When he smiled it provoked me further. I don't know how,  but I jumped over the table between us and started either pounding him or  strangling him; I no longer remember which. When I jumped I caught the  microphone cord. The investigator was there, Tolya . . .I no longer recall his last name, and he says, "Lyudochka, it's a Japanese microphone! Please . . . " And shut off all the equipment on the spot, it was all being video taped.  They took him away. I stayed, and they talked to me a little to calm me down,  because we needed to go on working, I only remember Tolya telling me, "You're  some actress! What a performance!" I said, "Tolya, honestly . . . " Beforehand they would always tell me, "Lyuda, more emotion. You speak as calmly as if  nothing had happened to you." I say, "I don't have any more strength or  emotion. All my emotions are behind me now, I no longer have the strength  . . . I don't have the strength to do anything." And he says, "Lyuda, how were you able to do that?" And when I returned to normal, drinking tea and watching the tape, I said, "Can I really have jumped over that table? I never jumped  that high in gym class."  So you could say the gang that took over our apartment was international. Of  the 36 we identified there was an Armenian, a Russian, Vadim Vorobyev, who  beat Mamma, and 34 Azerbaijanis.  At the second meeting with Grigorian, when he had completely confessed his  guilt, he told of how on February 27 the Azerbaijanis had come knocking. Among them were guys--if you can call them guys--he knew from prison. They said,  "Tomorrow we're going after the Armenians. Meet us at the bus station at three o'clock." He said, "No, I'm not coming." They told him, "If you don't come  we'll kill you." He said, "Alright, I'll come." And he went.  They also went to visit my classmate from our microdistrict, Kamo Pogosian. He had also been in prison; I think that together they had either stolen a  motorcycle or dismantled one to get some parts they needed. They called him  out of his apartment and told him the same thing: "Tomorrow we're going to get the Armenians. Be there." He said, "No." They pulled a knife on him. He said,  "I'm not going all the same." And in the courtyard on the 27th they stabbed  him several times, in the stomach. He was taken to the hospital. I know he was in the hospital in Baku, in the Republic hospital. If we had known about that  we would have had some idea of what was to come on the 28th.  I'll return to Grigorian, what he did in our apartment. I remember that he beat me along with all the rest. He spoke Azerbaijani extremely well. But he was very fair-skinned, maybe that led me to think that they had it out for him, too. But later it was proved that he took part in the beating and burning of Shagen Sargisian. I don't know if he participated in the rapes in our  apartment; I didn't see, I don't remember. But the people who were in our  apartment who didn't yet know that he was an Armenian said that he did. I  don't know if he confessed or not, and I myself don't recall because I blacked out very often. But I think that he didn't participate in the rape of Karina because he was in the apartment the whole time. When they carried her into the courtyard, he remained in the apartment.  At one point I was talking with an acquaintance about Edik Grigorian. From her I learned that his wife was a dressmaker, his mother is Russian, he doesn't  have a father, and that he's been convicted twice. Well this will be his third and, I hope, last sentence. He beat his wife, she was eternally coming to work with bruises. His wife was an Armenian by the name of Rita.  The others who were detained . . . well they're little beasts. You really can't call them beasts, they're just little beasts. They were robots carrying out someone else's will, because at the investigation they all said, "I don't  understand how I could have done that, I was out of my head." But we know that they were won around to it and prepared for it, that's why they did it. In the name of Allah, in the name of the Koran, in the name of propagating Islam-- that's holy to them--that's why they did everything they were commanded to do. Because I saw they didn't have minds of their own, I'm not talking about their level of cultural sophistication or any higher values. No education, they work, have a slew of children without the means to raise them properly, they  crowd them in, like at the temporary housing, and apparently, they were  promised that if they slaughtered the Armenians they would receive apartments. So off they went. Many of them explained their participation saying, "they  promised us apartments."  Among them was one who genuinely repented. I am sure that he repented from the heart and that he just despised himself after the incident. He worked at a  children's home, an Azerbaijani, he has two children, and his wife works at  the children's home too. Everything that they acquired, everything that they  have they earned by their own labor, and wasn't inherited from parents or  grandparents. And he said, "I didn't need anything I just don't know . . . how I ended up in that; it was like some hand was guiding me. I had no will of my  own, I had no strength, no masculine dignity, nothing." And the whole time I kept repeating, "Now you imagine that someone did the same to your young wife  right before your own eyes." He sat there and just wailed.  But that leader in the Eskimo dogskin coat was not detained. He performed a  marvelous disappearing act, but I think that they'll get onto him, they just  have to work a little, because that Vadim, that boy, according to his grandfather, is in touch with the young person who taught him what to do, how  to cover his tracks. He was constantly exchanging jackets with other boys he  knew and those he didn't, either, and other things as well, and changed  himself like a chameleon so they wouldn't get onto him, but he was detained.  That one in the Eskimo dogskin coat was at the Gambarians' after Aleksandr  Gambarian was murdered. He came in and said, "Let's go, enough, you've spilled enough blood here."  Maybe Karina doesn't know this but the reason they didn't finish her off was  that they were hoping to take her home with them. I heard this from Aunt Tanya and her sons, the Kasumovs, who were in the courtyard near the entryway. They  liked her very much, and they had decided to take her to home with them. When  Karina came to at one point--she doesn't remember this yet, this the neighbors  old me--and she saw that there was no one around her, she started crawling to  the entryway. They saw that she was still alive and came back, they were  already at the third entryway, on their way to the Gambarians'. They came back and started beating her to finish her. If she had not come to she would have  sustained lesser bodily injuries, they would have beat her less. An older  woman from our building, Aunt Nazan, an Azerbaijani, all but lay on top of  Karina, crying and pleading that they leave her alone, but they flung her off. The woman's grown sons were right nearby; they picked her up in their hands  and led her home. She howled and cried out loudly and swore: God is on Earth,  he sees everything, and He won't forgive this.  There was another woman, too, Aunt Fatima, a sick, aging woman from the first  floor, she's already retired. Mountain dwellers, and Azerbaijanis, too, have a custom: If men are fighting, they throw a scarf under their feet to stop them. But they trampled her scarf and sent her home. To trample a scarf is  tantamount to trampling a woman's honor.  Now that the investigation is going on, now that a lot is behind us and we  have gotten back to being ourselves a little, I think about how could these  events that are now called the Sumgait tragedy happen? How did they come  about? How did it start? Could it have been avoided? Well, it's clear that  without a signal, without permission from the top leadership, it would not  have happened. All the same, I'm not afraid to say this, the Azerbaijanis, let other worthy people take no offense, the better representatives of their  nations, let them take no offense, but the Azerbaijanis in their majority are  a people who are kept in line only by fear of the law, fear of retribution for what they have done. And when the law said that they could do all that, like unleashed dogs who were afraid they wouldn't have time to do everything, they  threw themselves from one thing to the next so as to be able to get more done, to snatch a bit more. The smell of the danger was already in the air on February 27. You could tell that something was going to happen. And everyone  who had figured it out took steps to avoid running into those gangs. Many left for their dachas, got plane tickets for the other end of the country, just got as far away as their legs would carry them.  February 27 was a Saturday. I was teaching my third class. The director came  into my classroom and said that I should let the children out, that there had  been a call from the City Party Committee asking that all teachers gather for  a meeting at Lenin Square. Well, I excused the children, and there were few  teachers left at school, altogether three women, the director, and six or  seven men. The rest had already gone home. We got to Lenin Square and there  were a great many people there. This was around five-thirty or six in the  evening, no later. They were saying all kinds of rubbish up on the podium and  the crowd below was supporting them stormily, roaring. They spoke over the  microphone about what had happened in Kafan a few days earlier and that the  driver of a bus going to some district had recently thrown a small Azerbaijani child off the bus. The speaker affirmed that he was an eyewitness, that he had seen it himself..The crowd started to rage: "Death to the Armenians! They must be killed!" Then a woman went up on stage. I didn't see the woman because  people were clinging to the podium like flies. I could only hear her. The  woman introduced herself as coming from Kafan, and said that the Armenians  cut her daughters' breasts off, and called, "Sons, avenge my daughters!" That  was enough. A portion of the people on the square took off running in the  direction of the factories, toward the beginning of Lenin Street.  We stood there about an hour. Then the director of School 25 spoke, he gave a  very nationalist speech. He said, "Brother Muslims, kill the Armenians!" This  he repeated every other sentence. When he said this the crowd supported him  stormily, whistling and shouting "Karabagh!" He said, "Karabagh has been our  territory my whole life long, Karabagh is my soul. How can you tear out my  heart?" As though an Azerbaijani would die without Karabagh. "It's our  territory, the Armenians will never see it. The Armenians must be eliminated.  From time immemorial Muslims have cleansed the land of infidel Armenians, from time immemorial, that's the way nature created it, that every 20 to 30 years  the Azerbaijanis should cleanse the land of filth." By filth he meant  Armenians.  I heard this. Before that I hadn't been listening to the speeches closely. Many people spoke and I stood with my back to the podium, talking shop with  the other teachers, and somehow it all went right by, it didn't penetrate, that in fact something serious was taking place. Then, when one of our teachers said, "Listen to what he's saying, listen to what idiocy he's  spouting," we listened. That was the speech of that director. Before that we  listened to the woman's speech.  Right then in our group--there were nine of us--the mood changed, and the  subject of conversation and all school matters were forgotten. Our director of studies, for whom I had great respect, he's an Azerbaijani . . . Before that I had considered him an upstanding and worthy person, if there was a need to  obtain leave we had asked him, he seemed like a good person. So he tells me, "Lyuda, you know that besides you there are no Armenians on the square? If  they find out that you're an Armenian they'll tear you to pieces. Should I  tell them you're an Armenian? Should I tell them you're an Armenian?" When he  said it the first time I pretended not to hear it, and then he asked me a  second time. I turned to the director, Khudurova, and said that it was already after eight, I was expected at home, and I should be leaving. She answered,  "No, they said that women should stay here until ten o'clock,.and men, until  twelve. Stay here." There was a young teacher with us, her children were in  kindergarten and her husband worked shifts. She asked to leave: "I left my  children at the kindergarten." The director excused her. When she let her go I turned around, said, "Good-bye," and left with the young teacher, the  Azerbaijani. I didn't see them after that.  When we were walking the buses weren't running, and a crowd from the rally ran nearby us. They had apparently gotten all fired up. It must have become too  much for them, and they wanted to seek vengeance immediately, so they rushed  off. I wasn't afraid this time because I was sure that the other teacher  wouldn't say that I was an Armenian.  To make it short, we reached home. Then Karina told of how they had been at  the movies and what had happened there. I started telling of my experience and again my parents didn't understand that we were in danger. We watched  television as usual, and didn't even imagine that tomorrow would be our last  day. That's how it all was.  At the City Party Committee I met an acquaintance, we went to school together, Zhanna, I don't remember her last name, she lives above the housewares store  on Narimanov Street. She was there with her father, for some reason she  doesn't have a mother. The two of them were at home alone. While her father  held the door she jumped from the third floor, and she was lucky that the  ground was wet and that there wasn't anyone behind the building when she went  out on the balcony, there was no one there, they were all standing near the  entryway. That building was also a lucky one in that there were no murders  there. She jumped. She jumped and didn't feel any pain in the heat of the  moment. A few days later I found out that she couldn't stand up, she had been  injured somehow. That's how people in Sumgait saved their lives, their honor,  and their children: any way they could.   Where it was possible, the Armenians fought back. My father's first cousin,  Armen M., lives in Block 30. They found out by phone from one of the victims  what was going on in town. The Armenians in that building all called one  another immediately and all of them armed themselves with axes, knives, even  with muskets and went up to the roof. They took their infants with them, and  their old women who had been in bed for God knows how many months, they got  them right out of their beds and took everyone upstairs. They hooked  electricity up to the trap door to the roof and waited, ready to fight. Then  they took the daughter of the school board director hostage, she's an  Azerbaijani who lived in their building. They called the school board director and told her that if she didn't help them, the 17 Armenians on the roof, to  escape alive and unharmed, she'd never see her daughter again. I'm sure, of  course, that Armenians would never lay a hand on a woman, it was just the only thing that could have saved them at the time. She called the police. The  Armenians made a deal with the local police to go into town. Two armored  personnel carriers and soldiers were summoned They surrounded the entryway and led everyone down from the roof, and off to the side from the armored  personnel carriers was a crowd that was on its way to the building at that  very moment, into Block 30. That's how they defended themselves.  I heard that our neighbors, Roman and Sasha Gambarian, resisted. They're big,  strong guys. Their father was killed. And I heard that the brothers put up a  strong defense and lost their father, but were able to save their mother.  One of the neighbors told me that after it happened, when they were looking  for the criminals on March 1 to 2 and detaining everyone they suspected,  people hid people in our entryway, maybe people who were injured or perhaps  dead. The neighbors themselves were afraid to go there, and when they went  with the soldiers into our basement they are supposed to have found  Azerbaijani corpses. I don't know how many. Even if they had been wounded and  put down there, after two days they would have died from loss of blood or  infection--that basement was filled with water. I heard this from the  neighbors. And later when I was talking with the investigators the subject  came up and they confirmed it. I know, too, that for several hours the  basement was used to store objects stolen from our apartment. And our neighbor carried out our carpet, along with the rest: he stole it for himself, posing  as one of the criminals. Everyone was taking his own share, and the neighbor  took his, too, and carried it home. And when we came back, when everything  seemed to have calmed down, he returned it, saying that it was the only thing  of ours he had managed to "save."  Raya's husband and father defended themselves. The Trdatovs defended  themselves, and so did other Armenian families. To be sure there were Azerbaijani victims, although we'll never hear anything about them. For some  reason our government doesn't want to say that the Armenians were not just  victims, but that they defended the honor of their sisters and mothers, too.  In the TV show "Pozitsiya" [Viewpoint] a military man, an officer, said that  the Armenians did virtually nothing to defend themselves. But that's not  important, the truth will come out regardless.  So that's the price we paid those three days. For three days our courage, our  bravery, and our humanity was tested. It was those three days, and not the  years and dozens of years we had lived before them, that showed what we've  become, what we grew up to be. Those three days showed who was who.  On that I will conclude my narrative on the Sumgait tragedy. It should be said that it's not over yet, the trials are still ahead of us, and the punishments received by those who so violated us, who wanted to make us into nonhumans  will depend on our position and on the work of the investigators, the  Procuracy, and literally of every person who lent his hand to the investiga- tion. That's the price we paid to live in Armenia, to not fear going out on  the street at night, to not be afraid to say we're Armenians, and to not fear speaking our native tongue.     October 15,1988    Yerevan  			- - - reference for #008 - - -  [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 118-145