Stepanakert has turned into a ghost town: what is happening in the capital of Karabakh

The exodus of Armenians from Karabakh has effectively ended. The Lachin corridor is empty, as is Stepanakert, reminiscent of a city from American films about post-apocalypse times. Empty houses, abandoned cars, stray animals…

Stepanakert looks surreal. The city is deserted, but at the same time alarming; people remain, but there are not many of them. Azerbaijani police are already working in Stepanakert, and even patrolling some areas of the city. For example, residents saw their column in one of the oldest areas – on Tumanyan Street.

Road signs in Armenian are being changed all the time. At the same time, communications, at least in the city center, are working – city lighting is turned on along the square, the streetlights are on. There is no light only in the apartments, where no one lives now. On the walls there are unkind messages for the new owners, the rooms are a mess. When leaving, the residents actively destroyed household values, but were unable to destroy spiritual ones – for example, not everyone was able to get rid of books in the Armenian language.

“Like a bookworm, I couldn’t burn my books, but at the same time I couldn’t take everything with me,” one of the refugees shared his story, “I evacuated only those about Artsakh. I didn’t harm Armenian books with my own hands – this is blasphemy for me.”

Recently, the last special services left Karabakh. The police and rescuers, who until the last moment continued to search the city for dead and wounded people, are now gone. The team of doctors also continued to work until the end: even though the hospital was already abandoned, people awaiting evacuation still came to it, who felt ill after a long stay on the street without food and water. Now doctors and rescuers have been replaced by Red Cross employees, who are looking for citizens in need of help using a loudspeaker.

“The staff have left the hospitals, so our main task now is caring for the helpless, helping the wounded who remain in the city,” Red Cross employee Marco Suchi says in a television report. “It’s difficult to say how many people are left now. Maybe several hundred people. We have several teams that go door to door looking for people who can be helped with medicine, provisions or contact with relatives.”

The central Renaissance Square looks empty and miserable. There is a lot of garbage scattered around: scooters, bicycles, baby strollers, clothes, as well as tables and chairs on which refugees sat while waiting to leave. At the edge of the square you can see an improvised stove, on which they cooked food in anticipation of departure and near it they warmed themselves on cold nights. A dozen dogs, clearly once domestic ones, wander around the square in search of food. From time to time, black tinted SUVs drive through the square, carefully avoiding the garbage.

“Now Stepanakert is a city without people, a ghost town,” Al Jazeera correspondent Osama bin Javid tells the camera. “If I shut up, you won’t hear anything, it’s so quiet here. There is no one on Renaissance Square except our team of journalists, several old people, disabled people, and animals: dogs and horses. We were constantly followed by several puppies who were very hungry.

We also saw Red Cross employees who were picking up the remaining people to take them to Armenia. It’s hard to describe the feeling when you find yourself inside an empty city, photographs of which you saw in better times.”

“I know that someone is still in the city at their own peril and risk,” Armenian volunteer Lev shared with MK. “These people are few, I think they are now hiding in the basements of houses, but they are somewhere need to get water and food. In the center of Stepanakert there are those who are waiting in line to leave for Armenia. They sleep on the streets, in the cold and in the rain, without food and a future. The departing cars are packed to capacity.

There is a slight advantage if the car is old and has a trunk on top where you can tie luggage and household appliances that will not fit into the cabin. Many modern cars don’t have this capability.”

– How are things going with communications in the republic now?

– There is no Internet, communications began to be jammed even before people left the city. Now they have begun to establish their own communication lines, which are tapped and monitored: talking on the phone or writing something on the Internet is not safe.