Right to Life. Karabagh

By Artur Amaras

Artur Aleksanyan, a jazz musician turned military commander in the war for the liberation of his country tells the story of life and death, war and peace, love and hatred. It would be a truly epic story but it's not. It's a story as old as the world itself – a man comes into this world and fights for his happiness, whatever that means to that man at that moment and in that place.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Artur Amaras
• Release date: Apr 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393939030

Artur Amaras

Артур Алексанян, профессиональный музыкант - джазмен, активист всенародного движения, бойец и командир-самородок 

Book preview

Chapter 1: Karabakh Born and Bred

I was born in the Soviet Union. Why, you ask, would I even bother mentioning that? The truth is, at this point, anyone here over the age of thirty can make the same claim. But it’s important if we are to understand the root cause of many of our current troubles. Those who haven’t experienced the Soviet Empire find it difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend us. For example, I was born in Stepanakert, the center of Nagorno Karabakh. It was an autonomous region, given that three-quarters of its population was Armenian. All the same, it was part of Azerbaijan. It begs the question: Why did a region populated by Armenians and so close to Armenia itself belong to Azerbaijan? Why didn’t the region share a border with Armenia, and how did that narrow sliver of land separating the two come to pass? None of these questions, whether complex or simple, will be answered if one doesn’t understand what the Soviet Union was. So, let’s start at the beginning: I was born in a country that no longer exists.

My home is Stepanakert, a small provincial town that is officially part of Azerbaijan. Whatever its political status, both Armenia and Armenian traditions were part of our life. My parents raised us as Armenians. Of their five children, I was the oldest. Aleksey, Aram, Anastas and my sister Adelaida followed. My father’s name was Artyusha, and my mother’s Raisa. The Aleksanyans were a big family; my father had three brothers and two sisters. Yet these were only his surviving siblings; five of his brothers had been killed in the Great Patriotic War (the name given, in the Soviet Union, to the Second World War). My mother, too, had a big family: three living brothers and three sisters, with three more brothers lost in the same war. I had over forty cousins.

My parents worked day and night to put food on the table every day. Although our life was difficult, we always had bread, and sometimes we had butter. It was difficult to provide for such a big family, doubly so for my father who had a disability. As a child, he had fallen off a homemade swing and sustained a serious injury that left a big hump on his back; according to my grandmother, and was lucky to have survived at all.

Those were difficult times, just before the war. To secure a decent life for our family, my father needed to work hard. He was physically inferior but had come to terms with this. Mentally, however, he was far ahead of his peers. He had a strong personality and found professional success as an in-demand accountant. At the banks and state institutions where he worked, they respected him for his wit, honesty and his excellent memory. As a child, I took pride in seeing my father preside as a toastmaster over important festive and funereal events. He was also the elected head of our street community—a status he and everyone else considered to be an honorable one.

Physically, my father found it difficult to cope with everyday household chores and relied on my help. I was in charge of fetching water from the well, chopping wood, gardening and taking care of the animals. There was much to do around a house that had not yet benefitted from such gifts of civilization as electricity, water, gas and sewerage. As the oldest child, I also helped my siblings with their homework and assisted my mother as needed. It was tiring work, and I would sometimes fall asleep in school—earning the sad glory of the nickname sleepyhead.

Given that my childhood years were filled with endless chores, I find it difficult to call them carefree. But so too did I have other troubles, a strange condition that had haunted me from birth called Periodic or Mediterranean Fever. It’s also called the Armenian disease because it occurs primarily in Armenians and Jews, and less often in other people of other Mediterranean origins. During the most painful attacks, my parents would rush me to the hospital where I was treated for various ailments that largely depended on the specialization of the physician on duty that day: rheumatism, heart disease, and others. Once, finding nothing amiss during minor surgery on my stomach, the doctors removed my healthy appendix—just in case. The cause of my doctors’ ignorance was the old Soviet internationalism; Armenian doctors from Karabakh received their diplomas not in Yerevan but the universities of Baku and Moscow, and knew nothing of the Armenian disease as a result.

Our house stood in the suburbs of Kirkijan, and I studied at school N8. My route to and from school passed through a park called Yolki Palki—a Russian phrase that translates literally to pine cones and sticks but that is typically used to express irritation. I have no idea why it was called that. 

One day, when I was seven years old, I saw the open terraces of the summer cinema jammed full of people. The police were there, too. I pushed through the crowd to find some sort of open-air court in session. Emotions were flying high. On trial was Azerbaijani man accused of committing a horrific crime. Arshad was his name (I remember it to this day); he had raped an Armenian boy, dismembered his body with an ax and buried it alongside the highway. He was found guilty and sentenced to ten years. When the judge asked about his motives, Arshad didn’t hesitate before answering: It was my right. Azerbaijan is my country. I’m the master here and I can do what I want.

The people flooding the park were already seething with indignation—and Arshad’s sneering reply was the last straw. Shouts rang out; anger boiled over. Arshad’s wife sneered that all she needed to do was to give someone a bag of gold and her husband would be free. The situation spiraled out of control, and the police shoved Arshad into a car to whisk him away. But it was too late. The car was flipped, gasoline was spilled and someone struck a match. The police began firing into the air, desperate to disperse the crowd. To my surprise, I found myself standing directly in front of my neighbors, Hrant Sargsyan and Hovik Ishkhanyan. Seizing my hand, they shouted: Run. Go home. Now!

I broke headlong into a run. Our house lay a kilometer away and I arrived out of breath and in terror. I couldn’t stop sobbing.

The news spread like wildfire, drawing even more people into the epicenter of the day’s events. A military unit quartered outside the summer garden fence was called in to suppress the unrest, and the city became quieter within an hour. The following day, the KGB sprang into action, launching into its typical habit of mass arrests. They interrogated everyone in the city. It had been the first large-scale nationalist riot in the Soviet Union, and the regime’s attention was focused squarely on us. I was also dragged to the KGB, and not only once. I remember that basement room in the local police station, where for hours they would ask me confusing questions. By the end, I would lose all sense of what was happening and couldn’t answer a single question, even if I wanted to.

These events, and the endless interrogations, caused serious harm. I ended up in the hospital. And yet, in the depths of my soul, I was proud that I hadn’t chickened out and named names. It didn’t help. Many were tried for inciting national hatred and sentenced to fifteen years; and too many of my friends grew up as orphans as a result. However, the strange atmosphere of camaraderie that remained helped them to not feel lonely. The wives of prisoners coped with their new burden and raised their children despite the absence of fathers. For centuries, the fabric of Karabakh society had been so closely knit we wouldn’t hesitate to rush to another’s aid, and even be ready to share our last piece of bread if needed.

Meanwhile, my health was getting worse. My parents complained at government offices, questioning the legitimacy of the KGB’s conduct. When that didn’t work, my father sent me to Moscow to stay with his elder sister, Galya.

Aunt Galya’s family lived in the city of Vidnoe, near Moscow. Her husband, Uncle Misha Tovmasyan, was an officer in the Soviet army and a respected man in his town. The couple had three children and accepted me with an open heart.

I will always remember the first time I saw the perfect white, abundant snow typical of that region; so too will I remember the marvelous birch groves, the asphalt road and the school that seemed too glamorous to believe. Yet I always felt alien there and found it hard to adapt to my new friends who were reluctant to accept me. At first, this was because of language: I didn’t speak Russian well. Six months later, without that language barrier, I was still just another Black Caucasian, a stranger. When it came to comrades, school parties, playing football in the backyard... I was an outsider.

During the holidays, I returned home. It turned out that having learned Russian, I had almost completely forgotten my native language. Armenian words simply disappeared from my mind. It brought tears to my mother’s eyes to speak of it. "My child is saying khleb (bread in Russian) instead of hac (Armenian). The warm, almost spiritual barev (hello in Armenian) has become zdrastvuy (in Russian). How is that even possible?" She decided she would no longer allow her first-born son to go away. My father didn’t object, and, starting from the age of 11, I rejoined the school in Stepanakert.

At the end of the sixth grade, my Uncle Alyosha arranged for me to work on a collective farm in the village of Shushikend. There, I was in charge of watering the vegetable fields and fruit trees in the collective farm garden. 

On the face of things, it would seem to be an easy job. But consider it through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old. I had to wake before dawn, walk fifteen kilometers to the garden (and back), water sun-scorched fields, and carry out other tasks as needed. As I redirected the water from one patch to another, the veins on my biceps swelled. Gentle fingers, still covered with calluses, had to wield a shovel. I still remember how, wet and frozen, I waited out a torrential rain under a walnut tree. Once I asked the Brigadier why we bothered to water the garden after a rainstorm. His answer shocked me: I cannot write in a report that there was rain. If you want your salary, I must write that you completed his work. This was the logic of a collective farmer, of the Soviet peasant.

It was a tough grind, but when my mother woke early to see me off to work, calling me a savior and a real man, it cheered me. Being useful to my family gave me strength; formed my character. Not only that, but it also gave me a good reputation, especially among the boys in my school.

The rewards for my work were abundant. Early in September, the collective farm tallied my workdays and paid out everything that was owed to me, plus a decent salary. Our neighbors took to the street to stare at the trucks full of vegetables and fruits, grains and corn, honey, butter and meat driving up to our house. This meant that our family would live in prosperity until the next summer. The same life awaited my brothers, Alik, Aram and Anastas. As soon as they turned fourteen, they went to work on collective farm fields.

Looking back on my childhood, I credit those difficult da

ys with forming in me a strong will. I have other fond memories: my friends, games of mäntäg and lahti. But it’s only the names that stay with me, nothing more... Too much time, and too many events, have passed for it to be otherwise.

Chapter 2: Shooting Star

When I turned sixteen, my agricultural life came to an end. To improve my health (which still left much to be desired), I turned to sports. The choice of the particular sport was because of a chance event. I came to the sports palace, Dynamo, to find my friend Karen Mkrtchyan who was in a fencing training session. The unusual appearance of the athletes, their white attire and masks covering their faces—it all fascinated me. What’s more, the sword – which the modern musketeer crosses with their opponent's – seemed like something from a dream. Everything depended on your speed, dexterity, and ability to impose your pace and style. I fell in love with fencing and started training. Unexpectedly, my ambition to become the best, in this most aristocratic of sports, was realized. I won second prize at the junior Nagorno-Karabakh championship.

From there, I went to a tournament in the capital of Azerbaijan. In Baku, we had to defend the colors of our flag in the Republican Championship. Nobody thought twice about this competition between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. But as I reached the semi-finals, the hostility was palpable. Nonetheless, success seemed dizzying: one more step, another round, and I would be the champion of Azerbaijan. Baku was an international city, the most tolerant in the USSR, or so they said—but if an Armenian gained the upper hand in a contest with an Azerbaijani, it would be the end of the world. I couldn’t articulate it at the time, but I felt that not only was the judge on the side of the Azerbaijani rapier, he also wasn’t trying very hard to hide it.

I pressed on, and kept the score even 4:2—but an accident soon occurred. My opponent wounded me. In pain, I left the track. As my trainer later discovered, my opponent had removed the protective head from his rapier—a strictly prohibited action. The judge, instead of dealing with the problem and removing the guilty party (or at least playing the point again), stopped the match and awarded him the victory. When my coach complained, the judge informed him that ‘the head fell off the blade by itself. How unlucky for you...’ Fortunately the wound in my side wasn’t fatal, but the pain caused by this dirty deal would not heal as quickly.

Upon my return to Stepanakert, my father informed me that I had to abandon fencing. I objected, but he refused to listen. That was the end of that. Looking back, I can’t say that my short fencing career drastically improved my health. However, fencing was a gift; it sharpened my reactions, improved my eye, and strengthened my ability to fend off a blow and avoid a lunge. I couldn’t have guessed it at the time, but the skills I developed through fencing proved invaluable, especially during the war.

At sixteen, the time came for me to decide who I would like to be in life. At home, we had a dhol—our national musical instrument, a double-sided drum played with sticks or fingers and palms. My father would play the dhol for our friends and neighbors, deftly drumming Armenian melodies and lifting the mood of the group. I remember how a crowd would gather around our house and people would clap, sing, and dance on the dusty street.

I’ll offer a few words about our street here. First, its virginal state was never disturbed by a drainage system, a sidewalk, bitumen or tar. In heavy rain, the road became impassable, the cars floating among huge puddles filled with croaking frogs. The street was called Hobelyanakan (Jubilee in English) and became positively Venetian after every rain.

Our cheerful evenings will forever stay in my memory. A nation becomes a nation when it’s united by something other than domestic necessity, joint labor or defense. The original, elemental art beating from the depths of folk culture, unites people more than the imperative formed by the conscious mind. I always loved dhol. My father only knew two or three common rhythms (6/8 and 3/4), but that was enough for me. I quickly mastered dhol and the anatomy of our national rhythm.

In the eighth grade, our teacher, Dariko Artashesovna, asked me to join the brass band organized by the school. So, I became a drummer, playing first on the big drum—then on the small ones and later the cymbals. My fate had been sealed.

There was no professional drummer in my city to teach me, so I set about learn the ropes on my own and in my own haphazard way, listening to tape recordings and television concerts. Sitting in front of the screen, I not only listened but studied the drummer’s every movement. I mastered the basics of musical literacy, and the ability to read a score. It took me some time to get noticed by musicians of note in Karabakh—but eventually they began to invite me to join them, and I began to play in the House of Culture. 

I played alongside such famous musicians as the brothers Heinrich and Vladimir Barkhudarov, Gena Astsaturov, and later Vladimir Arzumanyan. I was absorbed in their music, always seeking to understand how they performed. They were fond of me, giving me advice, correcting and encouraging me. They became my mentors, and it was an exceptional journey. Thanks to them, and my willingness to ask questions, I was becoming a good musician. Unfortunately, none of my mentors are still alive but to this day I remember, honor and love them. It took their incredible vision to begin a pop and jazz ensemble in tiny Karabakh in the 60s, and that tradition they helped to shape still bears fruit.

Having acknowledged the contribution of my mentors to a great culture of pop and jazz music in Karabakh, I must also acknowledge that of your humble servant. The wheel of my fame quickly gained momentum; I took part in all-Soviet competitions and festivals. This made me a familiar name familiar not only in Karabakh, but to jazz music lovers in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and later, in the immense Soviet Union. By the end of the 70s, and by the age of 20, I had made a name for myself and was earning a lot. Feeling that I got the hang of the profession, I ventured into training others. I opened a percussion studio in the House of Culture, and quickly found myself teaching around thirty students.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s important to go back to the origins of my career.

Sometimes, insignificant events that go unnoticed at the time form an imperceptible thread that is only visible in hindsight. These events have the power to change a man’s life, however clear and defined that life may seem. Once, I attended a Karabakh Jazz Orchestra concert conducted by composer Heinrich Barkhudarov, and was blown away by the skill of the drummer, Viktor Tugorev from Saratov, Russia. Rhythm, tempo, breaks, bars, syncopation, forte, piano—all these terms suffused with mystical meaning, seemed to me to relate less to the theory or technique of playing, and more to my soul. I envisioned myself on stage, sitting behind a drum set.

Over time, I came to know percussion instruments so well that I created a set for myself. When I realized how good a job I’d done, I thought: why not make one to sell? To my surprise, I was quickly sold out! People practically tore my hands off to buy them. They say that appetite comes with eating, and my drums met with high demand. The explanation for this has much to do with the realities of the market. In stores, percussion instruments were very expensive, as stores only sold drum sets from Riga, Latvia. Famous brands such as Premier, Tama and Amati were hard to come by, and even more expensive. This knowledge –that good drum sets were inaccessible for musicians – set me on my way. 

I bought decommissioned drums, removed inexpensive hoops, fixers and mechanical parts, and completed sets with cymbals and high hat cymbals on a stand. At the electric plant in Stepanakert, I treated these with a yellow or silver solution to make them shine. As the last step, I made a case for all four drums using semi-transparent Plexiglas. When submerged in hot water, Plexiglas becomes easy to handle and wrap around old drum casings. Polishing the ends, I fixed the hoops and membranes, set up a tuning fork—and a brand new set of percussion instruments, ARTUR, was created.

Transparent drums soon became a hit on the market, and soon ARTUR kits found fame throughout the Caucasus and in the Soviet Union. I even sold sets in Poland and Bulgaria. In a week I could make two full sets. The instrument looked superb; the sound was excellent. As a result, I added a decent earning stream to my revenue from concerts and the studio.

They say that is nothing in life is accidental. Could I have guessed that I would end up spending the money I’d earned through playing music and producing musical instruments on buying weapons for self-defense?

One day, a rumor spread about the dissolution of our jazz orchestra. Within a few hours, the rumor was confirmed, and followed by even more unbelievable news. The artistic director of the orchestra, Heinrich Barhudarov, had been arrested on charges of raping a maid in a Baku hotel! They could have come up with something more clever... The fact was that Heinrich was a handsome man with a smart face and a friendly smile on his lips. A sympathetic and kind man, he enjoyed huge success with women, and he had a rare attachment to his