The Azeri-Armenian Village Swap

Witness History

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture, History

4.5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2018

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At a time of a bitter ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1988, two villages managed to escape violence by swapping homes with each other. Bairam Allazov, an Azeri, and Ishkhan Tsaturian, an Armenian, told the BBC about how they managed to guide their neighbours and families to safety as war broke out in the Caucasus.

Photo:Photo: Bairam Allazov (l) and Ishkhan Tsaturian (r). Credit: BBC

Transcript

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1:05.4	Hello you're listening to the Witness Podcast on the BBC World Service
1:10.0	with me, Dina Newman.
1:11.6	Today we go back to the USSR in 1988 and the beginnings of a bitter
1:18.0	ethnic conflict between two Soviet republics Armenia and Azerbaijan. But two villages from either the up their belongings and swapping homes with each other.
1:37.0	I was the head of a large collective farm for 25 years.
1:41.0	We had a successful cattle rearing farm and next to us we had an Armenian
	...

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