The village of Maratuk with its three households is located near the road leading from Berdzor to the south. A well-groomed garden running along the path from the roadside toward the village is a welcome sight after the drought-dried greenery along the main road.
“You can never come back from the war. You can come back physically, but not spiritually, “ says Kharabakh war veteran Doctor Artsakh Bunyatyan. He seems to have found one to escape this condition: he drinks vodka (or sun liquid, as he calls it) and offers it to his visitors.
“Hambaryan Pargev Washingtonovich,” was the answer we received from the father of many children from the village of Haykazyan to our question, “What is your name?” The villagers simply call Pargev Washingtonovich Hambaryan Pasha.
In 1994, a policy of repopulating the Lachin Corridor with refugees and families from throughout Armenia was instituted. But now, many of the families who moved to the area are leaving. The current head of the regional administration in Kashatagh, as the area is now known, is Hamlet Khachatryan, appointed through a decision by the NKR government in November 2004.