Victory Day

It's been a few years since I spent Victory Day in Karabakh, but this year it just conveniently happened. A Sunday afternoon invite, a Monday departure, and my first overnight stay in Shushi... The road was long as usual, with wildflowers in the Ararat Valley and snow at the Zangezur Pass.

Tuesday, the 8th was my chance to check out a hike I wanted to add to the Janapar trail. There's a village below Shushi named Karintak, which I stayed in one summer, and we tried hiking to a waterfall... but never made it. So now that I'm working on this trek across Karabakh, I remembered the waterfall, and plus knew the canyon was breathtaking... but with no road going through it I didn't know if you could continue on to the next village. We headed down on the 8th and with some initial guidance and advice ended up at the waterfall, which was absolutely beautiful. A mossy drippy thing with a small cave, right by the river, with massive cliffs in all directions, you felt transported back in time. From there we headed to an old footbridge in the ruins of a village time and roads forgot, before climbing up the cliffs opposite Shushi to the village of Mkhitarashen, where the Victory Day celebrations had begun a day early, and there wasn't a sober man in the village to take us back to Shushi. Luckily, with cell phones and taxis, we quickly used the 21st century conveniences to get us back home to a cold shower, and hanging with a bunch of friends from Yerevan.

Victory day was a whirlwind of events, with the Presidents of Armenia and Karabakh seemingly everywhere we went. Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi was one center of activity, then the new city plan for Shushi was unveiled, then after eating at a really nice restaurant that opened last year we headed to the huge concert. To say that there was tens of thousands of people there is no exaggeration, I even wonder if it hit over 50,000. It was the 15th anniversary of the capture of Shushi, a major victory and turning point in the Karabakh, and the concert was huge, the crowd was huge, the fireworks seemed to never end... a good time was had by all.

It was a very photogenic trip, and I've uploaded a record 18 pictures from these past 2 days - so go to my photo page and enjoy...