accounts of anti armenian human rights violations in azerbaijan there s no room for christians here and when we finish with the armenians we ll go after the russians deposition of karine borisovna melkumian born teacher boarding school no resident at building b apartment block a sumgait azerbaijan this is my fate i had everything we were a happy family and now at i ve become a widow i m left to raise my three children alone the third not yet two months old was born in yerevan igor and i had thought that if it was a girl we would call her raisa after my mother in law and if it was a boy we d call him arsen after igor s grandfather i had a girl and i without igor named her raisa in honor of her dead grandmother our family and the melkumians had been neighbors since igor and i grew up together we were friends from childhood on we got engaged when i was in when i was we were married two children were born to us in sumgait my daughter is now years old her name is kristina and my son seryozha is four and a half first i shall tell what happened on february that day on my way home from work i passed lenin square where about people had gathered there were komsomol members there and pioneers children s organization and there were both party members and non party people there as well all of them were shouting there s no room for christians here and when we finish with the armenians we ll go after the russians and some even cried out death to the armenians absurd rumors had been circulating about town i became frightened i came home breathless and told about everything i had seen downtown my family couldn t believe it my father in law sogomon markovich melkumian wasn t home he was at an azerbaijani wedding by eight o clock he returned and had barely finished parking the car when his rear window was smashed with a rock he got out of the car but there was no one there well i was telling him everything too and he said what is there no longer any government that same day igor said papa something terrible is happening in the city and he said we ll stay at home no one will drive us from our own home the day passed on february that was sunday we didn t go out we called our relatives and asked them all kinds of questions and they all said the same thing sometime around evening they started smashing the car of an armenian from the neighboring building ira my brother in law s wife and i called the police they re wrecking a car help we called and called and nonetheless they didn t come and they didn t do anything on february on monday even though there were troops in the city we were afraid to go to work i called the school i had the keys to the classroom i told the senior teacher that he should send someone for the keys i wouldn t be coming in he agreed and even said fine don t come in we understand what s going on in town don t come in before that on the th the ambartsumian family came over they came to my father in law and said uncle sergey they broke our windows bad things are happening in town uncle misha ambartsumian even said with my own eyes i saw them chasing naked girls through the streets i don t know he said we should leave town well on the th we were already trying to decide where we should go thinking we d go to our dacha we got a couple of bags together clothes food the bare essentials and then somewhere around the building manager came by and said uncle sergey the situation in town is bad don t go out my father even opened up to him and said maybe we ll drive to the dacha it ll be safer there no he said it ll be worse there you ll be safer at home he said don t be afraid if something happens i ll send people to save you after he left about minutes passed and about people burst into our courtyard all of us were at home at the time igor and i and our two children ira and edik and their daughter my sister in law ira and my mother and father in law and the ambartsumian family there were three of them uncle misha zhasmen and their daughter marina now when they started breaking down the door i remember edik and igor told us go in that room and close the door close the door and calm the children so they won t hear that there s anyone home the children started crying suddenly ira my brother in law s wife suggested let s run out onto the balcony we the two daughters in law and the children and zhasmen and marina raced out onto the balcony my sister in law and my mother in law ran in and said quick over to the other balcony or they ll kill you all we lived on the second floor we needed to cross over from our balcony to our neighbor s at first we couldn t manage it the balcony looked onto the street at that time people were coming home from work and many just stood there watching i pleaded and begged please call someone have someone come i even started shouting i ll throw down the children i ll throw them down you catch them and take them somewhere so at least the children will survive either they were afraid or i don t know what they looked as though they were watching a movie some of them started throwing stones at us i ll say it again these weren t the bandits these were people from the other part of the building and from our entryway they were just regular people passersby a bus even stopped i remember a man s voice saying the armenians were climbing over to the other balcony ira my sister in law helped us get the children over there i was pregnant about seven months pregnant no it wasn t yet seven it was six and a half i climbed over too i think zhasmen went first you know i just don t remember it all that well zhasmen went first i think and edik s wife ira and i had the children and they were all screaming and crying my kristina said mamma don t throw us over the balcony we re afraid lilia was crying and kristina and seryozha were crying too kristina didn t even want to climb over she shouted i m staying with grandmother i m staying with grandma she loved her grandma more than she loved me and my mother in law shouted oh no kristina s still there she s still there save kristina too ira helped us climb over with kristina coming last ira helped us and went back inside we started pounding on the neighbor s balcony door i pounded with my fist sevil open the door open it please she didn t open it no go away go anywhere go i m not opening the door she was our neighbor we were friends we never refused her anything ever and apparently she thought we were going to break the windows and she opened the door she opened it and said karina karina go away go anywhere just don t stay here they ll kill us too because of you i begged please at least take the children we ll leave we ll go back no she said you have to leave her sons ran in one had a knife sevil s brother he s around shouted at us get out of here leave i ll kill you with this knife i became terrified i took the children and went out in the entryway and went down a few stairs i went down and heard a loudspeaker it was in the courtyard the armenians must be killed they ve taken all the best places all the best apartments one of them said let the armenian blood flow none of them should survive when i heard that i went upstairs and started knocking on doors no one opened their door for me not on the third floor or the fourth i couldn t see zhasmen any longer ira came upstairs later i even thought that they had let her stay that they would save her my head was spinning they were killing my family and here i was in the next entryway with two children seryozha was four and kristina was five and a half they were crying mamma we re scared they were so frightened that i didn t even know how to calm them should i try to calm them or myself it was awful but on the third floor a man did open his door i asked open up let me inside he opened the door slightly and said no no and that was it he said it so sternly no i went up to the fifth floor i pounded my fists on the door with all my might he opened up the man of the house and stood there looking at me i was ready to get down on my knees i almost did get down on my knees please i beg of you at least take the children he wasn t an azerbaijani he was a lezgin i don t even know how but he let me inside and when i went in zhasmen was already there two minutes hadn t passed when ira and lilia came up the stairs lilia was crying he didn t want to open the door and again i started pleading please open the door it s our ira and lilia open the door and he said no i m afraid i said again and again please open the door please he looked at me he looked at me for a long time and then opened the door after all ira came in with lilia we threw ourselves into each other s arms crying then the man locked us into the bathroom we sat there for a long time through the door he told us calm the children and calm yourselves down too calm down this man was hiding us but what of our family when i was still in our apartment i had sensed that none of us would come out of this alive i said igor edik let s say farewell and edik turned around and looked at me as if to say is that some kind of joke all the same i thought they would kill all of us igor looked at me too but it was already too late they started pounding on the door igor was standing next to the door before that he had told us go lock yourselves in that room and sit tight he thought we were in the room but before we went out onto the balcony we went to them edik igor let s say farewell igor didn t think we could climb over to the other balcony and we did get over there and i myself can t believe we were able to save ourselves igor put on a helmet and edik had his coat on and he put on a fur hat all the men igor edik their father and misha ambartsumian they all stood next to the door they thought they would pound on it a while and leave but from the other side of the door they ordered in azerbaijani open the door we were all silent waiting someone outside the door said they re home they re in there break down the door and i remember my father in law whispering they re going to break it down now it s coming down now he had something in his hands i think it was a knife if they got in we were going to defend ourselves in the hall near the door there were two metal chair legs from outside the door they said we re counting to five open up but we were all quiet we didn t answer them we made like no one was home we figured they d leave they d get tired and leave my father in law had said it s not possible they d come into my home how can that be everyone knows us all of sumgait knows our family we are on good terms with everyone and indeed a day did not pass that there wasn t an azerbaijani guest at our table we had a nice dacha everyone would get together there often azerbaijanis liked being with us there too but now we had to save ourselves we had to flee from our own home ira i remember said i m not leaving here my brothers and my parents are here i m going to fight alongside them that s just what she said she picked up a knife and said if they open the door and come into the apartment then i m going to fight alongside my family i m not going anywhere we were at sevil s when they broke into our apartment we heard fighting and shouting the noise was terrible and when we hid upstairs on the fifth floor at the lezgin s apartment you could hear everything up there too even ira s voice i remember her calling her mother several times she called her for a long time i started pounding on the door in the bathroom open the door what are they doing to ira who s shouting that s ira shouting that s her voice but the lezgin said it s nothing calm down no it s not in your apartment he was lying to me so i d calm down two hours went by and the lezgin opened the door and said karina igor got away calm down he ran away he saw igor break away and run off with his own eyes they killed him outside next to the building while we were in the bathroom i experienced every possible human terror the way ira shouted she shouted save me mamma save me mamma mamma she repeated it several times there was a wild din there were very many people there all of them shouting all of them bellowing howling whistling you just can t imagine what was going on what the roar was like apparently after they had killed ira those murderers came into the entryway where we were hiding and came upstairs all the way up to the fifth floor i don t know if they were just looking for any armenians or for us in particular but i think they were looking for us because when we had climbed over the balconies someone on the street was saying that the daughters in law were climbing over the balconies and after we heard ira we heard them coming up the stairs in the entryway and hammering on the doors i thought those were our last moments and started saying good bye to my children kissing them they were sleeping i woke them up kristina seryozha wake up and i tell ira ira if something happens we ll throw ourselves off the balcony we were on the fifth floor apparently our lezgin neighbor had opened the door too because later he said i opened the door and told them there were no armenians inside and after they all left our neighbor went out on the balcony himself to see they were gone we weren t friends with those lezgin neighbors we only knew each other from the building but the people we were friends with wouldn t even consider hiding us the lezgin let us out of the bathroom they had a candle burning he said karina there re no lights on in our block the whole block was dark the whole block it s a huge block too the lezgin said i m afraid to keep you until morning i m afraid of the neighbors they might kill me for saving you i said what are you saying we ll leave now but we can t just leave with the children in the middle of the night give us time to find somewhere else to hide he said well ok go look i asked ira ira do you want to go ira said no i ll stay with the children karina i said fine then i ll go zhasmen and i went downstairs together it was very dark no one was in the courtyard it was dark pitch black l was afraid to go out at after seven igor always met me after work and accompanied me home i never went out alone and now here i was out in the middle of the night and after a slaughter like that too it was probably after eleven later i called the boarding school and my director answered he said karina where are you i didn t know i was calling from a public phone outside and didn t know where i was i got confused and hung up the receiver from him i only found out what time it was i asked him what time is it he said i think but i don t really remember so anyway zhasmen and i went out into the courtyard i look and see what appears to be a person not far from our apartment and there was the smell of something burnt i became horrified i looked at the corpse for a long time it was either ira or edik i only saw one of them zhasmen grabbed my hand and squeezed it hurry up let s go hurry up come on what are you turning around for i turned around and saw a large truck it must have belonged to the bandits because they came to kill us in a truck like that we lived in the third entryway and that truck was next to the fourth we walked quickly holding hands i thought if i go to the police then they ll put me away i couldn t count on them before i reached the police station i saw a military vehicle we went over and i said soldier in block i don t know if they ve killed people or injured them we need to save them and he said go to the police station and tell them everything i said i m afraid to go there i m afraid of them he said don t be afraid we went to the police and they wrote down the address and the military vehicle went to our building i didn t go with them they left me at the police station i gave the addresses of my mother and my brothers so that they d rescue them too i didn t know where they were or what had happened to them after a while they brought my children and ira and lilia first they took us to the kgb that was at two or three in the morning then around five they took us to the city party committee and there were very many people there very many i was pregnant and was wearing nothing but a dress seryozha was only wearing a shirt and kristina had a little dress on no coat no boots nothing and we sat there for three whole days in the city party committee the lezgin had told me that igor escaped and i thought that he was probably alive but then after two and a half days they took us the armenians of sumgait to nasosny on march some people from the central committee came and told us karina ira we need you come with us to the city party committee my mamma had come to nasosny and she had been looking for me for six days mama my brothers and my uncle we went to the city party committee and waited there in the courtyard i was wearing nothing but a dress and ira had only a dress on as well there was a strong wind on march an hour went by and then one of the functionaries told us karina ira gather your courage would you like to go to the burial i said what did they really kill all of them he said let s look he had a long list and he started reading them off igor melkumian my husband eduard melkumian my brother in law irina melkumian my sister in law sogomon melkumian my father in law and raisa melkumian my mother in law he read off all their names and said get in the car let s go to the burial we buried our family i couldn t believe it at the time i couldn t conceive of it or imagine it and even now i think how shall i explain it to my children when they re older my children were very attached to their father and their grandfather and grandmother kristina didn t love me the way she loved her grandfather and grandmother they spoiled her kristina would always announce my grandma is better than anyone now even though she is getting used to my mother it s difficult for her and once she told her you re a bad grandmother i don t know why i asked her kristina where s papa and she said they killed him she knows she understands it all and recently i scolded seryozha severely for something and he started shouting at me when papa comes i m going to tell him everything july nairi boarding house near the village of arzakan hrazdan district armenian ssr reference the sumgait tragedy pogroms against armenians in soviet azerbaijan volume i eyewitness accounts edited by samuel shahmuradian forward by yelena bonner published by aristide d caratzas ny page david davidian dbd urartu sdpa org armenia has not learned a lesson in s d p a center for regional studies anatolia and has forgotten the p o box punishment inflicted on it cambridge ma late turkish president turgut ozal
