InternationalShushi’s revival, like its liberation, will require a united Armenian effort
A town’s quest to regain its bygone charm
Published: Saturday May 05, 2007
Surp Ghazanchetsots Church in Shushi. Grigor Hakobyan
Yerevan - In a few days, Armenia will mark the 15th anniversary of the liberation of Shushi. The military operation that wrested the city from alien hands on May 9, 1992 was welcome evidence that Armenians, when united, are capable of outstanding achievements.
But a decade and a half on, Shushi still waits for a similar effort by the Armenian nation, to help it rise from the ruins, and regaining its former beauty and reputation as Armenia's city of artistic wonders.
Rebuilding the legendary city is the focus of the Shushi Revival Fund (www.shoushi.org), established in spring 2006 through a government initiative. Appropriately, Yerevan Mayor Yervand Zakharian chairs the fund's Board of Trustees, leading a group of 15 members which includes well-known cultural, public, and religious figures from Artsakh, Armenia, and the diaspora. Among them are the primates of the Ararat and Artsakh dioceses, Archbishop Navasard Kchoyan and Archbishop Barkev Martirosian; American University of Armenia president Harutiun Armenian; writer and publicist Zoriy Balayan; Hamazgayin theatrical director Sos Sargsyan; Armenia TV chief Artem Sargsyan; and Shoushi Fund president Bakur Karapetian.
City of artisans
Shushi is situated 1,500 meters above sea level, at the crossroads of the Caucasus and Iran, and between two important Armenian lands: Zangezur and Artsakh. Artifacts unearthed in the surrounding territory date the earliest settlements to the first millennium B.C.
The town of Shushi itself was established much more recently: in the mid-18th century at the site of Shoshaberd, the familial fortress (sghankh) of Melik Shahnazar of Varanda, one of Artsakh's five constituent principalities. Since then, and until the early 19th century, Shushi was a center of the Karabakh khanate, first subordinated to the Persian shah and then to the Russian emperor. Following Russian-initiated administrative reforms, Shushi became the center of a self-named district, which incorporated most of Artsakh and parts of Zangezur, and was itself part of the Yelizavetopol governorate.
In the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, Shushi had its own mayor with a city council (duma), as well as a town police force, magistrate, treasury, a mutual loan bank, a post and telegraph office, army barracks, and other public offices.
The town of that day had a population of 42,000 - large for its time and even for present-day Armenia - mostly of populated by Armenians. Shushi was home to 1,856 stone-built homes, 11 streets, six squares, four stone and two wooden bridges, 376 shops, five hotels (caravanserais), seven taverns, four tanneries, two brickwork shops, three dye-houses, and one small silk factory.
Craftsmen representing more than 500 professions worked in the town, and in the years straddling the 19th and 20th centuries, a majority of the population were artisans, including metal-workers, jewelers, stonemasons, tailors, weavers, shoemakers, and barbers.
"Shushi was one of our rare settlements with a pronounced urban culture," says Marina Grigorian, the Shushi Revival Fund's public relations officer. "We want Shushi to regain its status as an Armenian center of culture, education, and spiritual matters. That's the reason that we want to draw the attention of all Armenians to Shushi, hoping that our compatriots will understand and realize the strategic, political, and cultural importance of rehabilitating the city, for the sake of Armenia's and Artsakh's future."
"We want to restore Shushi to the way it was in the old days - reconstruct it to become even more beautiful and attractive to its own inhabitants, and particularly to our youth and tourists," Ms. Grigorian continues. "This is the fund's aim. Fifteen years have passed since the liberation of Shushi, but sadly much of the town is still in ruins. Only the Ghazanchetsots Church has been fully restored."
Ms. Grigorian recalls that other organizations have helped Shushi in the past. "Certainly the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund implemented several projects in Shushi. But the rehabilitation of an entire town, especially one of such historical and cultural value, requires a special approach. It's not just about constructing an individual building, or a street or a road, but a much more comprehensive program, requiring years of planning and implementation."
Stirrings of revival
In the year since it began, that the Shushi Revival Fund has managed to fund the development and implementation of several projects intended to breathe new life into the town.
It has already commissioned and completed a 50 million-dram (about $140,000) master plan for Shushi, which includes a blueprint for its social and economic development.
The fund is particularly proud of completing the 180 million-dram (over half a million U.S. dollars) "Center of Tourism and Crafts" project, which aims to attract tourists while creating local jobs. The program involved rebuilding the bus station, which now houses an information center for tourists, and the adjacent square, which now includes traditional crafts shops, cafés with local cuisine, a winery, and exhibition spaces.
About 100 Shushi residents took part in the reconstruction. Thirty local young men and women received training which included internships in Yerevan, and will now work in the Center - which is due to formally open on May 9 as part of the 15th anniversary celebration.
Also in the works is a 30 million-dram ($85,000) micro-lending program, which through loans and training would assist 20 local families to launch small businesses like restaurants, pharmacies, hairdressing salons, photo services, and Internet cafés.
In another project, 100 Shushi children, mostly nine- and ten-year-olds, were taken to Yerevan for Christmas vacation. This year, the fund will help bring students from Armenia and the diaspora to Shushi.
