My favourite Azeri-Armenian village
It's been three months I regularly go to a small village located about an hour south of Yerevan near the border of Naxichevan (the Azeri exclave South Ouest of Armenia). This village is called Tigranashen and has a peculiar history. Many of its inhabitants came as refugees from Karabakh and Baku and have traumtic war experiences behind them. I also heard about how it used to be an azeri village and that at the time of the war the armenians threw petrol on the houses before setting the village on fire (after which its inhabitants left in a couple minutes they claim). I also heard that this village had another name: Karki. But what I didn't know is that this little peace of heaven with just about 40 houses has got something even more interesting to hide! I found this on Google Maps.
I wondered what the white line around the village meant, and after some research I found out that Tigranashen is actually 'de jure' an exclave of the Naxichevan exclave, and therefore an Azeri enclave in Armenia. But de facto, it is part of the Ararat province of Armenia. The geopolitics of the South Caucasus will always surprise me... And nothing will make me stop loving Tigranashen-Kargi, even if it was a lost island in the Pacific ocean :)