Kirants

Haghtanak Nazaryan’s breast star: ‘Participant of 1992-1994 Military Operations’. 1994

Nazik Armenakyan, Piruza Khalapyan
Historical research: Ara Zargaryan

ZOHRAB NAZARYAN

Resident of Kirants

 

They say this village is Azerbaijani, but they have settled in and began to live here, forming a population. This plot of land belongs to the Kherumyans, the heirs of Melik. They have distorted the name calling it Kheyrimli.
And this church was built by our forefathers. The name of this place was Kunen. Later, in the 60s, it was renamed Kirants. There is an inscription on the church wall.
Now we have to hear this story. They say, ‘Who are you? This is the true story.’But we know everything, that’s how it is.

This area was attacked by some rival tribes. There were no Azerbaijanis then. There were Lezgins, Arabs and Tatars. We’ve defended ourselves and this is the only village here that has lived though. Our graves are on a plot of land of the Tukharyan family. Our graves are older than the so-called Azerbaijani village. The tombstones witness to that. We can go and check everything out.

Holy Virgin Church of Kirants, built in 1675

HISTORICAL SOURCE

Artsakh was one of the 15 provinces of Greater Armenia. Mets Kuank was among the renowned regions of Artsakh, also named Mets Kvenk and Mets Kuenk.

Nanny SHUSHI
Resident of Kirants

 

I am a 73-year-old woman; there have never been Turks here (in some Armenian borderline villages, residents call Azerbaijanis Turks). This is Armenian land. The construction of the bridge was underway in 1967. I was a schoolkid then. We used to cross the river to reach the village. There was a watermill by the bridge. It belonged to my mother’s father. Now it is given to the Turks.

HISTORICAL SOURCE

In the Soviet period, Azerbaijani cattle farmers from Kirants and neighboring Armenian villages continued to build houses

Nanny HERIK
Resident of Kirants

 

My father lived and died in this village. He has told me everything. We let the Turks live in that area. The whole garden belonged to an old Armenian woman. After her death it was divided between us. Now they gave all the land to the Turks. I am in agony. I have been working in these fields my whole life. There was a tobacco field in place of the wall. They gave it to them after all.

In 1982, my husband told me that coal is buried beneath the soil, just where they have divided the land. Coal is buried there. Everyone knows where it is; we can dig it with an excavator and see. We went to work there and planted tobacco. Now they say it belongs to the Turks. I can go there and show everything, but the Turks have hoisted a flag there.
They lied. Each of them built a house and brought others. They have built 10-15 houses, thus becoming a village. We fought a lot for the land. 
They have no land. There were disputes in 1958 and 1970. Their women had come to the bridge and were fighting with men for the land. They wanted our land from us.

HISTORICAL SOURCE

Since the 19th century, Armenian-Turkish-Tatar disputes for Armenian territories have been on and off in Kirants. A similar territorial question arose for the Paravants Bagher area in Kirants.

HAGHTANAK NAZARYAN
Resident of Kirants

 

In those days the villages were interconnected and in close proximity to each other. After the earthquake, many Azerbaijanis left this area. Meanwhile, Azerbaijanis were driving Armenians out of Sumgait and Baku. The Azeris took their livestock with them though. 
Little by little, we began to take turns on guard duty. This van here, which they say is Azerbaijani, is actually Armenian; it has always belonged to us. During the day, we came across, we worked, but at night they would open fire on us, burn houses, steal livestock, and abduct people. This is how tensions escalated due to their actions until 1991. Then they entered our village. In March 1992, the Soviet army left, and we drove them out of our land.

Haghtanak Nazaryan’s photo archive. Kirants, 1993

The shootings were inside the village, fired from the houses where the flag is raised today. In the early 90s, there were many casualties in our village. Ordinary people were wounded from mortar shells and gunfire in their gardens or yards. Back then, they always oppressed us. We could have gone all the way to Gazakh if we wished. But we only wanted them not to shoot on us from our land. Today, they have come into our village again.

Every Armenian wanted to participate in the war. In 1992, I was 19 years old. On the night of March 10, 1992, at 12:10 we received assault rifles for the first time. They gave us weapons at night to defend the border. In the morning, while we were digging trenches, the Azeris came and killed a man from our village. During the burial of the deceased, we launched an assault in the direction of the village, and they killed another person. We didn’t do it on purpose; they were to blame. If we didn’t do it, they would have come and burned our village. 
There was a fight within ourselves – would the Azeris let us keep sheep or build a house on their land? The Azeris were building their houses at the border, or on our land, and we were retreating to be far from their houses. The more we retreated, the more they advanced, and now they say it’s their land. If it’s an Azerbaijani territory and is matched with the map of 1976, there was a forge dating back to the 1800s there. How come that forge was built in an Azerbaijani village? Azerbaijan didn’t even exist then.

HISTORICAL SOURCE

In May 1991, during the Operation ‘Ring’, Kirants was also surrounded by helicopters, tanks and vehicles. In 1991, following the withdrawal of the Soviet army troops from the heights of Khermlu village

The following scientific sources were used for this article:

  1. Simonyan R., Kirants. Tigran Mets Publishing House, Yerevan, 2008.
  2. Shakhikyan G., Kirants vank. [Kirants Church]. Hayastan Publishing House, Yerevan, 1984.
  3. Simeon Katoghikosi hisatakarany․ Divan Hayots Patmutyan, Girk G․ [Kat’oghikos Siméon of Erevan. Jambr Archival Chamber (Armenian Studies Series). Vol. 3]. M. Sharadze Publishing House, Tiflis, 1984.
  4. Hayastani ev harakits sh’rjanneri teghanunneri bararan, hator 2. [Dictionary of Toponymy of Armenia and Adjacent Territories. Vol. 2]. publication of ASU, Yerevan, 1988.
    Ardzagank Weekly, 1888, N 10.