On Artsakh, paradox and return
In 2023, during the blockade of Artsakh and the war that followed, I found myself living through a paradox. Surrounded by scarcity, my soul had never felt so full. As a diasporan, I hadn’t grown up in Artsakh, but I was lucky enough to be there then. In the face of everything that was stripped away—electricity, food, fuel, safety—what remained was something few people truly find in a world of excess: a sense of purpose, clarity and belonging.
The early days of the blockade were chaotic. Supermarket shelves emptied. Gasoline became more valuable than gold. Power outages stretched into days and then weeks. Every aspect of daily life was thrown into question. Yet, slowly, we all adapted. Routines changed and priorities shifted. People became more generous with less. Those of us who stayed found new ways to live—not just to survive, but to live with intention.
“Artsakh is not blockaded from the world; the world is blockaded from us.”
Time moved differently. Even as some days were consumed with basic tasks—finding bread, securing water, checking in on neighbors—there were moments that felt suspended in time. My most cherished memories are of the trips my friends and I took into the mountains. We would gather what we could find—some potatoes, leftover canned goods, cheese from a nearby village, sometimes meat, if we were lucky—and venture past the edge of the city. High in the mountains, it felt as if we were stepping into a realm untouched by blockade and war, far from the rest of the world.
Up there, with the wind rushing through the trees and the horizon stretching endlessly before us, we were not victims. We were not surrounded. We were home. We would joke, “Artsakh is not blockaded from the world; the world is blockaded from us.” That saying carried weight. It wasn’t just our way of coping. It was our declaration that the world, in turning its back on Artsakh, was missing something irreplaceable: a place that was not just land but spirit—a sense of conviction that could never be broken by barbed wire or political deals.
Around small fires, we would talk late into the night—about our fears, yes, but also about the future and rebuilding. We talked about how we felt lucky to live in resistance and dignity on the land and legacy our ancestors left behind for us.
What I remember most vividly isn’t the hunger or the cold. It’s the bonds we forged in struggle, in the understanding that our presence there mattered. Simply by staying, by planting ourselves on that soil, we were making a statement: We belong here.
Now, I’m back in the states, living in Washington, D.C., fortunate enough to keep fighting with the ANCA team and our incredible advocates across the country. I can flip a switch and the lights come on. I can order food from any cuisine in the world. I can go days without thinking about whether the gas line is working or if the internet will hold up. I’m surrounded by comfort, security and modernity, but part of me—the part I miss most—still lives in those mountains.
It’s strange how the coldest nights I’ve known still warm my soul, how the sound of a drone overhead was less worrying than the sound of silence from diplomats who found our existence inconvenient. Despite the absence of everything people associate with “quality of life,” I felt more alive, more grounded and more human than ever before.
I think about the friends I made there. Some are now displaced. Some are still fighting, in one way or another. Some are no longer here. Every one of them remains etched into my memory, carved into the stone canvas of mind—part of a chapter that defines not just who I was, but who I want to become.
Living through the blockade changed me. It taught me that home is not a place of convenience; it is a place of conviction. That courage can be quiet and persistent, like the act of planting potato seeds in unsuitable soil or boiling tea over a wood fire when there’s no more gas. That dignity is choosing to stay rooted when everything around you is trying to push you out.
Artsakh wasn’t just worth living for. It was, and remains, worth fighting for. We fight not only through resistance but also memory, truth and reclamation, because what we lived was real. What we built in that darkness was light. And no military, decree or mumbling politician—be it ours or theirs—could take that from us.
We lived more fully during those hard months than many ever will. We were fortunate participants in something essential. Every moment was steeped in meaning. While I left Artsakh physically, a part of me remains there, still walking those trails, warmed by the fire of shared purpose.
Now, in the quiet noise that fills my mind, like a persistent hum, I dream of reclamation, of liberation—not just taking back land, but taking back the right to live fully, to belong unapologetically and to remind the world what it lost when it chose to look away.
Today, as we advocate for our return to that land, I fight not just for recognition on a map or redrawn borders but for a part of myself. The part of me that is sitting still around a fire in those mountains, waiting for someone, anyone, to return.
Gev Iskajyan
Latest posts by Gev Iskajyan (see all)
- On Artsakh, paradox and return - April 22, 2025
‘how lucky we felt to live in resistance and dignity on the land and legacy our ancestors left behind for us’
as Armenian Diasporans, we’ve always had an inbred identity, an inherited purpose, a cause – because 🇦🇲