Last month saw the annual Caucasus Music Awards held in Tbilisi, arguably the cultural centre of the South Caucasus, and featuring bands from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Because of time I couldn’t do as much reporting as I’d like, but did get a chance to interview Azerbaijani Experimental Doom Pop band, DiHaj for the BBC’s Azerbaijan Service.
Following the recent escalation on the Line of Contact (LoC) separating Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in and around the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, BBC Azeri recently published my piece on the view from Georgia. In particular, it focuses on opinions expressed at a meeting of the Thinking Citizens platform, an Azerbaijani and Georgian-Azeri initiative.
Radio Way (ICK/CCA), Duisi, Georgia © Onnik James Krikorian 2016 It’s not often there’s some positive news coming out of Pankisi, better known these days as the birth place of Tarkhan Batirashvili, aka ISIS’ Abu Omar al-Shishani, but some does exist. In addition to...
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty has just published a photo story as part of my long time personal project on social vulnerability in Armenia and Georgia. It’s been going on since 2000 or 2001 and I’ve written countless articles and produced many more photo projects that at some point I need to upload to this site. Anyway, for now the RFE/RL photo story.
Over the past few weeks a number of publications have published my photo story on the Cross Riders Motorcycle Club (MC) in Tbilisi, Georgia — probably the first ever ‘classic’ MC, as we know the term in the West, in the South Caucasus. True, I covered the Hye Riders MC in Armenia a decade ago, but it was more nationalist in spirit rather than the Cross Riders who instead seem to be united only by a love of bikes and drinking crazily.
Last week BBC Azeri published my video report on reWoven, a sustainable development project to revive and sustain the art of traditional carpet weaving among Georgia’s ethnic Azeri minority. I had interviewed Ryan Smith, reWoven’s founder, over a month ago during an exhibition of some of the carpets made as part of the project, but only got to visit one of the villages where some of the weavers live last weekend.
Cross-border projects in a conflict-riven region come in many forms, but perhaps the most overlooked has arguably been those in the area of culture. There have been some notable exceptions such as the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra that performed in Yerevan and Baku as well as elsewhere, but otherwise most cultural events featuring both Armenian and Azerbaijani musicians perform in neighbouring Georgia.
Two weeks ago saw Tbilisi Jam! Fest 2015 held close to Lisi Lake. Featuring metal bands from the U.S., Europe, and Israel, the event also saw another instalment of the Wacken Open Air (W.O.A) Metal Battle Caucasus in which groups from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia competed to represent the region in the German music festival.
Despite having visited Georgia since 1999 I never did the tourist thing until my Mum visited from England in 2012. The next time was in September this year when two old friends from the UK came. Unfortunately, Jon and June didn’t have enough time to travel to Svaneti and Tusheti so they were limited to Tbilisi and nearby, but nonetheless enjoyed themselves.