Inside Stepanakert As Azerbaijani Blockade Continues

This December 20 image shows stalls, which were recently piled high with fruit, now lying empty in the central market of Stepanakert, a city known as Xankendi in Azeri.

Empty fruit and vegetable boxes outside a store on December 19.

Stepanakert is the largest city in Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Approximately 100,000 ethnic Armenians are currently stuck in the territory, and vital supplies are unable to be imported due to Azerbaijani activists blocking the only road in from Armenia.

Russian peacekeepers face Azerbaijanis blocking the highway connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia on December 13. (Photo by Azertac)

Dozens of Azerbaijanis first blocked the road, known as the Lachin Corridor, on December 12. The group declared themselves “eco-activists” who were protesting the extraction of gold by ethnic Armenians from mines in surrounding areas of Azerbaijan.

Spontaneous protests are routinely broken up within minutes by police in Azerbaijan, and many have accused Baku of staging the Lachin protest to put pressure on Yerevan and Karabakh Armenians. 

A street in the center of Stepanakert.

Marut Vanian, a local journalist and photographer in Stepanakert, has been posting regular updates from his blockaded city. He says the situation became especially tense between December 13 and December 16 when the gas supply to Stepanakert was cut off amid freezing weather, leading to schools, kindergartens, and other facilities shutting down.
 

A pile of firewood for sale on December 15.

Nagorno-Karabakh’s gas supply is piped from Armenia through territory recently recaptured by Azerbaijani forces during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, which erupted in 2020.

Lida Mikayelian portions dough in a bakery in Stepanakert.

The baker told photographer Vanian: “There is still bread, thank God, but there are no vegetables at all.” The 87-year-old said the Russian peacekeepers tasked with protecting the Lachin Corridor have become increasingly toothless as Russia’s disastrous invasion of Ukraine grinds on.

“Azerbaijan is using this moment to advance its plans,” Mikayelian said, adding, “Russia is not able to maintain our security, but at the same time, it doesn’t want to ‘lose’ us. This is the situation.”

The flag of Nagorno-Karabakh seen on a house in Stepanakert.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh since Armenia-backed separatists captured the mountainous territory, populated by ethnic Armenians, in the 1990s. Nagorno-Karabakh today is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
 

An ATM in the center of Stepanakert.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov claimed on December 15 that Karabakh Armenians had “no problems with food or medicines,” adding that Azerbaijan is “ready to provide any humanitarian assistance.” He blamed the recent gas outage on cold weather and mountainous terrain.

A view of central Stepanakert on December 20.

A severely ill hospital patient was evacuated out of Nagorno-Karabakh and through the Lachin blockade for emergency open-heart surgery in Yerevan on December 19.
 

Smoke rises from houses in Stepanakert on December 19.

As the blockade continues, some locals are continuing to use firewood to heat their homes due to its low cost. Local authorities have urged residents to reduce electricity usage amid fears vital electrical supply cables that run through Azerbaijani-held territory could be cut.
 

Graffiti next to empty produce boxes.

Some locals joked to Vanian that, if the blockade continued, potatoes would soon be listed on the exchange boards alongside dollars and euros.

Empty produce boxes near a bus stop in central Stepanakert. 

For many residents, the ongoing blockade is hard to joke about. Stepanakert mother Anna Muradian is one of around 1,100 people now locked out of her home city after visiting her soldier husband’s grave in Yerevan. He was killed in the 2020 conflict with Azerbaijan.

“On the one hand, [my children] pine for their father. It’s suffocating for them” Muradian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. On the other hand, she says that, due to the blockade, her youngest son now “misses his mother,” too.