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And what were they, those 2.5 millions of Armenians who could not last in their land (albeit provided with phedais of their own)?

I’m gonna put it straight – just mujiks they were. All life long they plowed, harvested, hauled the dung from cow houses out, were digging, hacking, building and from 1555 they clung to the same occupations but already as a part of Turkish Empire (all over one quarter of the then state’s territory were they toiling thru their lives).

Okay, fine, the mujiks also had their own elite: merchants, political figures, shoemakers, writers and composers, however, those were far away, in the capital city of Istanbul. But, on the whole, just mujiks as is they were.

From 1915 to 1923, while the elite were being hanged out on the lampposts in the capital city, the arrangement about mujiks was way simpler – collected in crowds, they were driven to Syria (also a part of the then Ottoman Empire), driven into the desert under the pretext as if some camps were awaiting to accommodate them there. So one million human beings died on that trek because they were driven without any food, shepherded by riflemen.

The guardsmen did not bypass gutting dead womenfolk in case she swallowed her gold earrings while alive. Some were lucky to find. (Armin Theophil Wegner; 1886—1978, another German witness of heinous atrocities.)

Still, what did Turkey need all that trouble for?

Easy as pie – it’s an Empire and any state of that status has no choice but to grow. It exists only while it grows, like those polyps in the Coral Reef.

But behold and see – the neighboring insistent grower, Russian, end 1800’s grabbed ample swathes off the Ottoman Empire. Who else might possibly be guilty of such an affront if not those Armenians? They also worship the Cross.

At the dawn of the next, 20th century, Turkey looses almost all of its possessions in Europe. Who’s guilty again?

For consolidation of any Empire, having an enemy is the must, be it an external or inner one. Such supposition can be exemplified with the Third Reich whose efforts brought the German nation to be consolidated not only by their just pride in their philosophers, composers, and high quality household appliances made in Germany but also the genes-deep feeling of guilt for the Genocide of Jews. Which is, of course, another story, yet the core remains the same – you can’t go on without an enemy and in absence of a sufficient bogey to make us stick together, we’ll invent some covid or another, and draw a useless mask on each and every visage, and subject folks to shitty injections, and any bitch holding off is against us, we’ll shut up their squeaks opposing the holy institutions and wisdom of our rulers…

The Stepanakert phedais' had one noticeable feature in common – their young age, from 16 to about 32. Night after night they kept shooting their AKs against the positions of the other side to the conflict entrenched in Krkjan, the commanding hill in Stepanakert outskirts. There sounded bazooka bums too in that neighborhood connected by a dirt road to Shushi and from there to the rest of Azerbaijan.

When someone got blown up by a mortar fire in his fox-hole, they buried him a day later in the city cemetery – everything was conveniently at hand, in the same blockade…

For me personally, the phedais are –

Mishik, who after the first (unsuccessful) storming of Malubalu Village returned home frozen thru and thru and slept for about 24 hours;

Gavo, my one-time coworker at BMM-8, after a night in Krkjan passed the AK to his shiftman and was coming back home, and winked at me proudly in the sidewalk along Lenin Street;

Samvel, whose wedding pants were shot thru with a bullet in the second (successful) storming of Malubalu yet he never looted a thing there, not a kopeck worth;

Edo (the Draftsman) sporting an obsolete army officer belt-harness.

In the then Stepanakert parlance the appellation “draftsman” was used to designate a person whose eyes in his head watched the world speeding round thru the prism of cannabis smoke because of the characteristic thoughtfulness pervading their countenance and optics in particular, when on high.

Nope, I did not know them closely enough to learn these details first-hand. The short-sighted policy of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR regarding the citizens who did their stretch in the construction battalions of the Soviet Army had not allowed me to acquire the skills needed for operating a Kalashnikov assault rifle, which would somewhat excuse my being non-Armenian and over the age-requirements. However, my wife Satenic was from the same generation with their wives.

True, I’m not sure about Edo’s being married, which does not constitute a too huge problem though – being a “draftsman” he’s always suited to design something.

And easily enough, take my word, bro…

* * *

Bottle #10: ~ The Third Point of View ~

....yep she’s a most complete fool that goofy Minnie is and I always sez it open to her right into her stupid eyes you’re a fool Minnie and they screwed your goofy head on in a completely screwed up way and she just keeps grinning her wacky smile as to show she is being a student in her third year of some or other stupid nothing and please don’t because you don’t need to screw my brains with all that blah-screwed-blah you know as well as I do that a woman needs all that studying no more than a french window in her cunt and let them go and screw themselves together with their whoppers about her way to come to the rudder of such so great enterprise and now been the woman of the year by the Forbes rating let ‘em go and tell those tales to bunnies under the Xmas tree about that business slut dangling her silicon tits oh yeah she’s so cute and stuff and all those faggy pidor couturiers pinch each other on the sly running for the honor to make her pants on their brand line they advertise in turn at Vogue Verdict and don’t you ever try to screw my brains as if it is her education responsible for such a so bright career hers no no no need try next door to push your goods Mr. Salesman I was not born yesterday and this business lady with her cute cunt was lucky to run in right time into a right place to split her fork for a right dick and become the Big Style Cunt of PromGas or whatever is the name of that warehouse that each and every pussy dreams to get to and all day long polish their nails at the polished desk like zombie dolls half dead of boredom as to buy a luxury car please anyone look at me please hey envy my polished Lexus I’m so cute and open to business opportunities but if you ask me I'd better go on moiling myself at that fucking supermarket but stay the master and commander of my cunt and decide who to get laid up with and not go by the leads and orders from Forbes for your stable growth in the corporative career and if they call me a whore behind my back then thank you very much for your ad and free canvassing and the choice of dicks for my pussy now grows expo-nationally yes I am a whore but I am an honest girl for my personal pleasure and not a hooker for a successful career

but this fool this Minnie keeps coaching me ah Maya you should learn something with your pair of legs and a diploma you’ll easily become First Lady as if I need that shit but that stupid fool that Minnie thinks a diploma plus pink iPhone makes you Master of the World and with her goofy bow legs she’ll never grow higher than a secretary to Manager of Housing Maintenance Office to serve him coffee and flesh-out quickie briefings in the doggies way behind the closed doors as if I don’t know how them those chick-students earn their iPhones in the third year but this dick-sucker with her horse teeth keeps it that her iPhone in her green purse that’s a brain-screwed-up nuts for you PINK iPhone in a GREEN purse and only one thing that I could thank the wacko for is her keeping me hang on with her stupid babble in the morning if not for her stupidity I’d miss the pretty guy and pass the Chris’ bench before he was there that manly male in his full beard as I like and not that prickly stubble around their mouths as if he did not wash the snot off his mug for three days no the guy had a real beard which makes you want to dive in and make a nest inside to have a baby there O, I’m such a fool and give out things at times neither here nor there and he looked after me by the bye when I was passing but I had nowhere to hurry today because its the second shift so I took a seat on the two-story house porch they seem like renting it again and the steps are not too trampled over and when he came to whiz onto the wall down there I thought damn it’s a fucking pervert but no he never looked up at me on those steps not a single time and that way I could dig it was Chris the farting geezer to send him over for a gag to tie up his hobby-horse there and when I saw what he was gushing from my legs slid apart all of their own and I thought to myself no Maya no and no I won’t act an unfucked chick with this one and never want any iPhone off him but just do it for my personal pleasure I’d ride this hobby-horse of his raw and no saddle needed

and then fucking Dad popped up from nowhere I never noticed him come but he’s a crazy old cat that’s what for they keep him at You’ll Get It and here you are his baby goggles at another guy’s dick and he punched the macho without any warning with that his mean jab below the plexus his specialty wallop sharp and pointed to get the wind knocked out of the guy who then can’t neither breath not fart and he’s kicking him on the ground but this time he crooked and grabbed his fist and the guy nimbly turned around and kicked a swift “hi there!“ back like in the video game street fighter Dad lost his footing and landed on the steps to basement head-first with a bang and stayed there resting so I ran up and grabbed the guy’s arm and sez let’s scoot this bull’s sturdy when he wakes up you’ll get it in full and took him to the grounds in the parallel street where the kids play basketball behind the net and we sat outside for a talk only he did not said his name maybe he’s wanted and I sez let me check your beard is not a wig but what the heck there’s an iron thing under it as big as his dick and he sez I d’not get it what the bull wanted of me don’t mind sez I that’s just my fucking Dad oops he sez maybe you’d better call Mom in case help was needed don’t worry the connection’s dropped out of use 8 months ago because of sea-rib-real cancer oh I’m sorry sez he as if she’s worth a sorry that fucking bitch who grabbed my legs hold while Dad was raping me in her lap when I’s 14 both drunk blind like two owls of which I did not squeak to him nope…

* * *

Bottle #11: ~ But Life Just Can’t Stop ~

Where did the phedais take weaponry from?

Light arms arrived, for all I can guess, by night choppers from Yerevan together with the flower for the city bakery plant. Besides, the garrisoned in the city regiment of the Soviet Army, when leaving it in the dead of night, did not pick a fight with the phedais who seized the regiment’s arsenal about an hour before the troops departure. The detachment commanders had their orders to withdraw from the zone of ethnic conflict and arrive in a specified location by the specified time. Recapture of the ammunition would definitely involve delay in the discharge of their orders.

And the adversary too shared their arms, at times. Thus, fighting back the advance to Askeran City (17 km east from Stepanakert) phedais grabbed two GRAD installations…

Once, coming down (and again after midnight) to Suicide's Spring (the handle was a self-made invention for my personal use because in route to that waterhead there were 65 steep, fairly shattered stone steps coated with slippery ice) I got fucking flabbergasted by the sight of an Azerbaijani tank (the affiliation attested by the crescent and star doodled on the turret) rolling with a goddamn clang-and-clink through the black-outed city in its repose between night artillery attacks.

At the unnerving vision my asshole’s sphincter reacted in its usual way (I mean the sudden adrenaline surge shot through my system) yet, by and by, I somehow persuaded myself that the iron monster should be none but a captured equipment whose driver decided to make a flying visit home and see his wife, you know… She must’ve been missing him too… press on, man, don’t make her wait too long… the asphalt has been fucked up before you and the traffic police… well, cut it out…

Phedai groups got organized through the knowledge by acquaintance and differed in both their quantity and denomination for which purpose they used the names of the heroes of yore (Chaush group, for instance), as well as handles or names of their commanders: the Fragment’s Group, the Group of Vacho, etc.

The General Command Headquarters stationed in the former Military Registration and Enlistment Office (MREO) used also for keeping spare Kalashnikov assault rifles there. The groups were separately deployed in the abandoned kindergartens of their choice.

Stepanakert, it seemed, was infiltrated with a spy and the most conveniently positioned artillery in Shushi City persistently worked on the kindergartens, yet the nearby houses suffered more. However, one of GRAD volleys did level half of the MREO building…

And not only phedais were pulling on their activities, the usual political routine unconquerably flowed in the city despite the underground way of life. The basement shelters turned the arena in the election campaign of candidates for the Supreme Council of the self-proclaimed Republic of Mountainous Karabakh, in conformity with the internationally accepted norms and practices.

My direct boss at the deceased paper, Arcadic, the Head of the Section of Russian Translations, joined the run for the Supreme Councilmanship too. He was in obvious jitters because of the mighty popularity his opponent enjoyed among the thieves-segment in their mutual electorate. The trepidation even made him give up shaving off his bristle. Moreover, getting readied to sell his image to audience in the basement at the underground debate with his contender…

And now Arcadic, advised and coached by the more experienced (and, contrastingly, well-shaved) cadres, comes to the open debate together with his confident, a member of the upper nomenclature layer famous for his tongue of silver, by the estimation shared in the milieu of elite managerial circles. But that yokel, Arcadic's rival, does not even have the slightest idea that so is the custom for election campaigns. That goofy goon.

So, the second (Arcadic’s) takes the rather uneven floor in the scantily lit basement and paints before the present shelterers the bright picture of the glorious future awaiting everyone and all of them if they vote for this here Arcadic in the coming elections (a couple of GRAD missiles burst outside someplace in the city to let him pause and take a breath) because he is exceptionally moral, Arcadic is, the family man of unheard of integrity and faithfulness, marital.

The masterpiece of oratory art delivered, the confident sits down by his candidate to get his fully-deserved laurels shaped as Arcadic's handshake, while that dumb rustic rises in his turn:

"OK, folks you’ve just heard what the guy sez, huh? So, mark you well that his each and every word was the very portrait of me in the natural size." And he gets seated back. No sweat whatsoever…

Over the road, where Lenin street enters the main square, they pulled a cloth strip with the inscription running:

'All To Vote!'

Yes, in the usual commanding style. All by the canons of the Soviet times. However, the hard-dying habit turned a mistake, strategically, for the artillery men from Shushi read the line thru their binoculars and kicked up some hell of a barrage on the election day, precisely in the working hours, from the opening to closure of the polling stations.

I came to the theater building to do my democratic duty and scanned the ballot – not a single familiar name in the list. Yes, the most right course was staying away from all that, and I'd follow it, were they not so authoritatively discouraging my participation, the artillery from Shushi. But now I was there and crossed out all of them so as not to leave hard feelings by random, undeserved favoritism.

OK, fine, but how to get back home now, under this downpour of shelling? Sure as hell, some frigging mole sits someplace with his radio transmitter informing on scheduled events in the city life because the notice over the road never mentioned the election date…

And what about Arcadic? Of course, fell through, what else could achieve that green-horn midst the treacherous jungle in the world of political crafty realities?.

The chocking blockade gradually loosened its grip.

First off, was captured Krkjan, the uppermost part of Stepanakert. Not at once though. It was captured then given up. Captured again, and again the phedais pushed out by the fresh reinforcement coming there from Shushi. Yet, at last the night came when the shooting died out on the hill above the city and fires blazed, here and there, up the slope – the eternal law of war: destroy all what can’t be grabbed and taken away.

Then came Malubalu's turn with their nagging howitzer battery…

For so large-scale operations phedai groups united under the command of a Major from Yerevan sporting the brave handle of “Kommandos”, who had behind his back the school of the Afghanistan war. Although even without his educated opinion it was clear to everyone that the next step to ensure survival was taking the Village of Khojalu which cut Stepanakert from Askeran town and controlled the Stepanakert airport.

However, capture of Khojalu changed the nature of the Karabakh conflict drastically, making of it a multinational fight in place of just two neighbors squaring it off…

People are all different, some like playing with dirt in their kitchen garden, others prefer fishing or they are fond of gambling at stock exchange or, maybe, of cooking. Were I asked, there’s nothing better than roaming and watching round with the eyes in my head in some, preferably not privatized area. But then you can’t go on without traders too, who also are people of their specific, mercantile predilection.

And there is some special breed among us, people, which by different tribes is named differently, though, in essence, they are of the same strain – stardust lovers.

Viking, conquistador, cossack, mujaheddin sighs up a condotta on paper or verbally, puts an intact pack of condoms into his pocket or under his belt, and joins a pack of freelance mercenaries, his likes. And then, led by an experienced condottiere, starts the poor devil off to conquer the wide world and become a new king/czar/sultan of all his subjects not killed in the process of subjugation.

The chances are also there that it never will happen, oops, and he might very well turn a disarranged heap of bones beside a sorrowful saltbush or a skeleton half-buried in the listless sand of dunes, yet living otherwise is not for him ‘cause he is an active stardust lover, cannon fodder of his own accord…

Before the storm of Khojalu such volunteers popped up on both sides of the confrontation: Afghani mujaheddins, Chechen militants (could you figure out on which particular side?).

An acquaintance swore to me on most holy things of his seeing Negroes (?) in the hills, my argument was – he’d wrongly interpreted Gastarbeiters from Tunis made up in the Arnold Schwarzenegger's style.

Later on when aviation was put to operation, a group of pilots took leave at their respective places of service and came to scrape together some petrodollars from Baku oilfields or was that euros after all? (No, monetarism has never been my strong point.)

In short, when one of them got shot down over Karabakh, he rapped on his buddies and got sentenced to the capital punishment but the request of the Belorussian “Daddy” Lukashenko and other elitist appeals set him free.

The group of Kuban cossacks with their lively tricolor and one KAMAZ truck that brought all of them (“I was marching to attack with just a cossack saber in my hands, the Azeries got stunned and stopped the fire”) and one military field nurse.

A score of Dashnak Party members from the Diaspora.

Two groups of stardust lovers from Yerevan.

A couple of Ukrainians worked at a rapid-fire anti-aircraft gun "Shilka" in the air defense of the RMK.

Much later, the cossack leader-ataman, a handsome albinos guy sporting thread-thick mustachio along his upper lip, was driving home his personal trophy from Aghdam (white car of the Zhiguli ’Kopeck’ brand) but at the crossroads of Lenin and Chkalov Streets the traffic lights were not working and he rammed a “goat”-Willis of phedais’.

Both sides to the accident exclaimed “fuck!” (each one in their mother-tongue). The ataman jumped out of the “Kopeck”, spat on the road from the disappointment.

They did not mean to wait for the traffic police to come and run an expert examination of whose fault the accident was because they both were without the respective license plates and just revved off, each one his way.

Although failing to become a czar, he still had grabbed a car. The hood dented a lil bit. And let him keep himself the count of condoms in his pocket and the count of buddies cut in the hills away by mortar fire. That’s all a part to the condotta-stipulated fate…

During the collapse of the USSR, while up there was a complete oatmeal—rigged out in a sciatica corset, not to spill a slippery puddle, you know, that make-believe President, who, like, was there yet, simultaneously, was not, some unpluggable thing, dangling askew—and down there, at the former outskirts of the brotherly Soviet Union, went on internecine sorting out, trampling, ramming, and turf securing; Azerbaijan opened widely for refugees from other regions of the late Communist Empire.

Most welcome were Meskhitian Turks and other Shia Muslims from the Sunni republics in the Central Asia all of whom were directly sent to settle in Karabakh.

Their destination became Khojalu Village which saw a hectic boom of transforming into a town which would surround the Stepanakert airport and also cut the city from two district centers (as mentioned above).

And it’s high time to apologize for the incomplete list of the mercenaries, to which I’ve inadvertently omitted entering collections of low-rank officers from the Soviet Army (on both sides), a quite excusable lapse though – it’s hard to keep in mind the mitts habitually stuck under your belt because they are always there.

Now, one final stroke. As both sides to the conflict wore the same fatigue (cotton-wear uniform of the Soviet Army) phedai groups’ fighters were ordered to bind white bandage strips up the left arm in their winter trench coats to see “ours” from “theirs” in the pending storm of Khojalu Village.

The night from 25 to 26 of February 1992 was assigned for Khojalu Tragedy, “the unseen in the 20th century Genocide”.

And that’ll do for today, the bottle is not of rubber…

* * *

Bottle #12: ~ A Buddy-To-Buddy Talk, Bro ~

The ceiling in the bar's way too high, tastelessly more than enough, you’d easily install some frigging entresol in between. While as is now, it absolutely sucks. Some haywire design of space arrangement by a shoemaker of architect and, you can't but feel it, done by the same dilettante who's also responsible for the vodka served in this here establishment, a sort of.

The bottles, inarguably, are all classy topnotch in any style that happened to make history in glassblowing: both flask-like and hexagonal, and prismoid, and elegantly barrel-shaped, and—you're free to fancy any “and…” here—but close your eyes and slap the sticker “Burnt Swill” on any one at all and dead right you are. Whichever hue, the bottled liquor is still that same old burnt swill retailed back in the USSR for 3-68 apiece or, when you happened to run into some extra exotic stuff, for 4 rubles and 12 kopecks.

Welcome to Our Wild Blind West! Vodka “Stolichnaya” for just $31.99! Our specialty product of choice sawdust and prime acetone.

Which does not tell in any way on the young bartender, spruce and proud of so expansive choice of tequilas behind his scraggy back…

And how do you like these windows, huh? Bigger than the walls themselves! Where's the fucking intimacy? Where's the aura of Cellar of 13 Chairs? If I may ask… So as to feel yourself beyond the reach of crazily hurrahing revolutionary masses outside, running to attack with their Mosin rifles a-tilt? What crooner of Vertinsky would sign a contract to miaow under such shitty conditions? Eh?

Fat snowflakes keep crashing from without against immense glasssheets in the broad panes. Slip-sliding down helplessly, no stamina to hold on, soft weaklings squashed by unsustainable burden of their own weight, the woeful state of being doomed – 1.2 millions killed yearly by the obesity in Europe only.

But wait! 23-15=8; 1.2*8=9.6; 9.6/1.5=6.4

Fuck it!

Or else 45-41=4; 1.2*4=4.8; 4.8/6=0.8

But still and again, exactly one third survived.

So funny they are, the snowflakes. Fluffy cuties. Every fifth boy and every fifth girl are exactly this same way. The poorer the section, the higher the percentage. Mommy could not afford a foster-mother, the sweet thing kept on the wonder powder ever since its birth. The conveyor-production fruits of global civilization. God save Johnson & Johnson!

He rubbed the wrinkles in his forehead ever so deeper, wearily. The unforgiving gaze bore the plate before him on the table.

Eat all of it! If not, I'll pass it to the boogeyman! The cleaner the plate, the fairer your would-be bride!

The snow outside the windows of the bar Make Or Mar sticks to thick trunks of the pines, adorns their long, southern-type needles with clinging white, white caps rise noiselessly up from the roofs of the parked cars. The light of day out there grew dimmer, wrapped in the sticky twilight. It can't be that late yet, huh?

Here, in the bar, the light shines brightly to show off the items in the collection stuck about in any suitable nook. Each exhibit's an irrefutable proof of the designer's nostalgia for the days of yore, when you could simply live your simple life, without giving it too much of thought. Simply live it.

TV-set “Record” in its plywood box. The sewing machine “Zinger”, those unaware it was produced in Chicago were reading ‘singer’ in the accustomed, German, way. The only foreign language in the then curricular for the compulsory secondary…

Disgustedly, crunched he a chip over-fried to dryness.

"Hey, Chris. You, like, reformed your habits or what? I'm right from You'll Get It. They say never put an eye on you for more than a week or so. Boycotting the establishment? What for?"

The side of the thick square tabletop opposite the window glass (but again why so too close to it? So that never use that side of the table?) got leaned onto by the elbows of a young man in a tight-knitted hat wearing a tiny glob of moisture atop each of the villi in the wool's down. The disappearing vestige of the former snowflakes brought inside from the street.

Along the dark hair hem beetling from under the tight cuff evenly upturned around the hat, there remained not a trace of moisture, all swept off with the artificial fur in the jacket's collar, spurned to fall and imbue the black-and-yellow tartan over the wide shoulders.

"Nobodya?” never taking his look up from the fork detaching the yellowish belly from the next chip. "Why trying to act stupider than you are blessed by loving nature? You know that I know that both of us know that you can't visit that place ‘cause of the migraines in your father's-in-law head. Ever since that rough landing down the steps you made water upon to facilitate his smooth slip, the guy's developed a habit of keeping a hammer under the counter to welcome you on the sight. So, how is all-good missus Maya?”

The fork is dropped on the tabletop, the plate irreconcilably pushed off.

"She left that supermarket and got a job in the big bookshop in the square. An expert on sales of post-purism paintings from the aggravatedly modernistic period, that's her position now, whatever it means. It's only that her employer presses her into learning to write. And I've asked you a zillion times already not to call me “Nobodya”.”

"Even so? Don't be over-picky. That's the most fitting handle for you. Or have I missed something? You recollected your Mom's maiden name? Amnesia is a heavenly gift for the likes of you, and stop digging any deeper, Nobodya Lazarievich. What if before your memory loss you'd been a career serial killer? Enjoy your current freedom. Stop any needless straining of your mind. A click of bitchy recollection and – back to the mill, to the same dreary toil. Do you really need it? By the bye, I would easily slap together a family name for you too. With a friendly discount, you know. You'll feel an incomparable bliss, cash back if you could ever take us over.”

"Slow down, old man, you're the second to none nor any second to you in sight. Hey, I always felt kinda curious, how come you remained without a handle in the street?."

"Chris is my handle.”

" Jeez, Chris, no kidding?”

"Stuck at school yet, like a shirt to ass. The burp of Good Queen Bess."

"Compromised by a gay classmate?”

"The Queen Virgin, you ignoramus! Our literature teacher, Lizavet Vasilievna, to visualize the point, explained that Shakespeare kept copying his early masterpieces from another playwright, some Christopher Marlowe, 'the way our Ekibastuzenko copies his homework from Marlov', which her lecture set the ball rolling."

"I still can't see where you enter in.”

"My family name is Marlov.”

"Ah-ha! Let me guess: Marlov – Christopher – Chris…”

"You certainly improve when seated next to an intelligent person. Now, ‘cause of this handle I dropped patronizing You'll Get It.”

"How come?”

"Christopher got stabbed in a London pub of the period. Poor devil. So young and stuff. Leaving a temporarily disconsolate widow and seven brats.”