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A Karabakh Holiday

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"Please, just don\'t sleep under the bridges," a friend begged when we announced that we were leaving for our bike-trip through the post-war Karabakh in the southern Caucasus region. It was only after the trip that we realized it was a reasonable request.

The Karabakh is about an eight-hour drive from Yerevan, Armenia thanks to diaspora-sponsored good roads. Still, it\'s not the first place an average person would think to bike through and call it a holiday. My girlfriend in this respect was extraordinary.

Inspiration of this sort can only come from those who have never actually seen the effects of war. My position during the civil war that took place on the streets of Tbilisi, Georgia was "bread buyer". As the boy, I was responsible for supporting my family in any way I could. As a minor I ran a very low chance of getting anything but the occasional smack in the head should I get caught somewhere enroute.

Having come of age in an environment that went from a Town & Country version of the American Ward & June Cleaver to a war zone to (to use a pet phrase of developmental workers everywhere) a "transitioning" society, I am immune to the supposed romance of war\'s wake. The prospect of being cut off from the world, however, in the company of a beautiful French woman does have its own appeal. So, I agreed.

There is no actual border between Armenia and the Karabakh. Nobody even checks documents on arrival. For those of you who don\'t know, the Karabakh is a disputed enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which is now a self-proclaimed republic. However, it has yet to be recognized by any state or respected organization. Ostensibly it is part of Azerbaijan. However, in reality it stands as a de-facto independent state and very much integrated into Armenia.

The Armenian route into the Karabakh is the simplest, as there is a lot of support for ethnic Armenians living in the Karabakh in their conflict against ethnic Azeris, particularly since Armenians have lain historical claims on the area. This has been a major sore point in their relations for ages, and as a Russian/English/French/Georgian-speaking couple on bikes, we did our best to avoid the re-hashing any old wounds.

We stopped near Shushi, the old Karabakh capitol, and decided to start cycling from there, as it is just 10 km above the modern capital of Stepanakert, so it would be a good start to enjoy an easy downhill bike ride. The weather was nasty and sad and we almost arrived in the town when the bike problems began. I realized I was stuck and couldn\'t cycle further as both my bearings were broken. You see, to get to Shushi we had to first go up a couple of kilometers to get into position because the town is situated on a huge rock with an even wider gap along the other side. Going uphill, I recognized the sound as the bearings in my front wheel broke. It\'s happened before. The bike had had to endure a rattling ride on top of the Yerevan-Stepanakert marshroutka. The route barely qualifies as a road. The bike was undoubtedly injured in the bumpity-bump of the ride.

We entered Shushi in vain, walking, hoping to find some garage or shop. It\'s a dead city almost without inhabitants sad and frighteningly quiet. Endlessly drawn out calm after a storm that seemed even more depressing than the gale of war that died down quite a while ago. treets without people, cracking walls, a few people looking from the windows or passing by, sleepwalking, strangeLike a bad dream after which unpleasant feelings remain to haunt you during the whole day. Shushi was populated by both Azeris and Armenians before the war. Since both groups fled the conflict, there aren\'t so many people living there now. The feel here was much worse than what we would encounter later in the ghost towns, where there at least existed a majority group of Azeris that kept it from being wholly uninhabited.

We managed to locate a fire station, where four men and a woman, a refugee from Baku, hosted us and helped fix the bike temporarily, just so that we could be able to reach Stepanakert. That done, we rushed off to the bus tation only to watch as the last bus to the capital left overloaded without us. Had the driver mustered he energy to re-shuffle the assorted wares that crowded his vehicle, we\'d have been on that bus--bikes and all.

Instead, we continued on to Stepanakert under our own power. We took no small pleasure in keeping pace and eventually out distancing the bus, much to the horror of the same seated passengers who\'d made no >effort to accommodate us. Stepanakert appeared to be a big city, with all kinds of services and fashionable girls. We were particularly impressed by the relative hustle and bustle after our time in Shushi, but we were also incredibly tired. The road to Stepanakert was uphill all the way and the incline only increases the closer you get to the city.

We were held back from taking advantage of the city\'s "tourist" attractions--not that there are any--by the pressing need of finding someone willing to fix my bike. Though actually we were able to take in a surprising number of the sites as we peddled from one end of town to the other in search of an open shop.

We started off in a small garage, asking for some tools to repair the bike. Within half an hour there were about eight people around us energetically attempting to help repair the bike. All of them appeared to be specialists of bike repair and tried to contribute to improving the health of my ill-fated metal steed. Some of these guys were helpful enough about the bike-even managing to pry loose a wheel-while others turned out gallant enough to buy some chocolate and champagne for my girlfriend.

A little cold bubbly was more than enough (along with our obvious fatigue) to smother any desire we had to continue futzing with the bike. Without admitting defeat, we gave in to the hospitality of the crowd and made our way to a hotel. The next morning we were only a little disappointed to find that the bicycle fairy had not visited during the night and that I was still left with a bike that had me peddling with all of the grace of a Russian bear at a poor village circus.

Along with the wheel that had annoyingly veered to one side, the crowd had succeeded in first adjusting, then removing entirely the bike seat. I was trying to make myself feel better by strategizing: "Okay," I thought to myself, "if I just tilt my torso and lean in with my shoulders for balance, riding with the threat of a seatless metal pole under meI won\'t notice it at all!"

Lucky for me the bus driver who had rolled his eyes at our seat request in Yerevan chanced by and took an interest in assisting us. He took us to a guy who specializes in metal work. In fact, it turned out that this "finest craftsman" of bicycles appeared to also belong to an elite group of national war heroes of the Karabakh. He had made sights for weapons and military vehicles during the war. He laughed when I

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