I was shooting the Karabakh War from start to finish. From 1989 to 1994 I was regularly visiting Karabakh. I was both in the rear and at the fire fronts, I was shooting both military operations and everyday life. I saw the war and only then I understood my father. It is very hard to recollect the war or rather it is not possible to forget it. It's not possible to forget the victory and losses, friends who died, bravery and patriotism.

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I returned to meet with Armenians; this time, it seemed, they were more quiet. A girl who was taken prisoner by Azeris a few days ago (Turks were bragging about it by radio) was found in one of the captured sentry posts with her head and breasts cut off. Hatred was so great that Azeris began mutilating dead bodies. According to them, Armenians were also cutting off heads of deceased Azeris. I was angry with such treatment but the boys explained to me: “We learnt it from Turks. It’s very good as thanks to that they are afraid of us.”

During the day Armenian artillery weapons were very quickly placed next to Drmbon headquarters very close to lake. In the evening at 18:00 o’clock shells were taken out of the weapons.

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Over many years of covering big events such as earthquake and the Karabakh Movement demonstrations, when I became aware that conflict had started on the Armenian-Azeri border, my first response was “It has to be covered”.

It was my great interest towards these events and probably the professional responsibility that led me in such a way to my first war. There was no fear.

However strange it may be, on that cold February day greatly excited I reached Ararat regional center from where first by car and then most of the road on foot I finally got to the conflict border.

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It was an early February morning in 1994. Fizuli region. Front line positions of our troops were stretching in the form of an arc near Abdurakhmanli village. It had been snowing during the night and tops of the hills surrounding the entrenchments were covered with a thin white shawl. The bright blue sky was contrasted with white clouds.

Tired of being awake all night we were asleep tossing in a tent which was set up in a hurry. Suddenly there was a long and loud burst of fire.

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The road from Stepanakert passes the nothingness that is post-war Aghdam, through miles of vineyards no longer tenable because they hold landmines. Finally, it reaches Martuni.

Hero Monte Melkonian became a martyr here, remembered in stone in Martuni’s square.

Others are remembered but unknown outside the families made smaller by their deaths. In this last settlement before Azerbaijan’s border, a hillside cemetery is Martuni’s history book . . .

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On December 9, 1994, a meeting took place on the Karabakh ceasefire line and an unusual transaction was made.

Two young captive soldiers - Azerbaijani Rauf Budagov and Karabakh Armenian Levon Babayan, both aged 23 - were exchanged for one another and allowed to go home.

The two men shook hands, each finding the other's - like his own - chafed rough by the cold and coated in dirt. Both trembled with emotion.

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