Ethnic Azerbaijani child, Marneuli Municipality, Kvemo Kartli, Georgia © Onnik James Krikorian
Despite the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict that has waged for three decades, and despite the ethno-nationalist narrative of alleged ‘ethnic incompatibility,’ the two groups do actually co-inhabit and co-exist in many villages, towns, and cities in Georgia. Ever since first hearing about the ethnic Armenian-Azerbaijani co-inhabited villages from Michael Andersen, a Danish journalist, in 2008 I’ve made a point of visiting them ever since to at least offer one positive example of co-existence between the groups albeit in a third country.
That’s something I’ve consistently done since 2009, always taking down journalists from Azerbaijan with me so that they can report on them too, although my last such visit prior to this year was in 2021 to ethnic-Azerbaijani majority Tsopi, a village with an ethnic Armenian minority, and ethnic-Armenian majority Khojorni, a village with an ethnic-Azerbaijani minority. This year, however, my project was expanded by also examining further the situation in Tbilisi and elsewhere, but particularly Sadakhlo as well.
Almost everyone traveling by road between Yerevan and Tbilisi has passed through Sadakhlo, the ethnic Azerbaijan village in Georgia close to the border checkpoint with Bagratashen in Armenia. It once was home to a cross-border market between the two countries and the three peoples even during the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict of the early 1990s but even today is the first population centre that trade and people pass through en route to and from Armenia and Georgia. Close by are a few of the ethnic Armenian-Azerbaijani co-inhabited villages.
Earlier this year, working with Konul Shahin, a writer and educator from Azerbaijan who had undertaken her own work on ethnic Armenians in Turkiye, we sought out more examples of ethnic Armenian-Azerbaijani co-existence in Tbilisi, Marneuli, Sadakhlo and the villages. The Baku-based Topchubashov were interested enough to support and publish our report.
In July 2023, as one of many trips made until September, the authors of this report traveled by bus to the village of Sadakhlo, an ethnic Azerbaijani village in Georgia close to the country’s border with Armenia. Before interviewing residents there, however, the first order of the day upon disembarking was to grab lunch from one of a few cafes and chaikhanas (teahouses) along the roadside in the center of the village.
As we sat down, the woman who approached us to take our order instinctively spoke Azerbaijani, but after some general conversation, she identified herself as an ethnic Armenian from Armenia. Thinking of us as tourists, she also said her husband, a taxi driver and an ethnic Azerbaijani, would be able to drive us around if we planned any sightseeing. We agreed, and while waiting for his arrival and as we finished our lunch, she told us her story.
Meanwhile, on the main road, dozens of cars and trucks with Armenian number plates driving to and from Tbilisi passed by as we spoke. A few kilometers down the road in this almost totally ethnic Azerbaijani part of Georgia, dozens more trucks from Armenia awaited customs clearance that can take days.
You can read the full report here.
