Journey to Karabakh by Aka Morchiladze: book review

Journey to Karabakh (1992, English version 2013) is set in Tbilisi, Georgia, and Ganja (formerly Kirovabad) in Karabakh, the contested region between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1991.

The narrator is 24-year-old Gio, from Georgia. His father, Tengiz, is in his fifties, and his second wife, Nana, is thirty-five. They have a five-year-old son, Irakli. Gio’s mother was struck down by a car and killed when he was three years old. When his father remarried, he moved to Nana’s house, leaving Gio with the family home.

The novel commences with Gio, his friends, and his girlfriend, Yana. Yana is a quiet person, who moved in with him. This changed Gio from a childish, surly youth into a calm, happy man. “Yana was everything to me,” he said. “We’d have proper conversations, like adults do.” She represented “the very thing people live for.” His family and friends expected the relationship to be a passing phase. But when Yana became pregnant, no one wanted Gio to marry “that girl.” Consequently his family made it impossible for her to stay and ensured that she left Gio’s home and the relationship.

Gio’s friend, Goglik, has an idea to go to Karabakh to buy cheap drugs (to the town of Ganja, which is also the word for cannabis). Although Gio was against the idea, Gio agreed after Goglik’s constant pleas. They intended the journey to be a day’s trip – over the border, get the drugs from a known dealer, and be back in the evening. Nevertheless Gio had a bad feeling on the morning they left. In the space of 90 minutes the National Guard had already stopped their Lada at the roadblocks four times.

It is 1991 – the time of the civil war in Georgia. Opponents of the Government of Zviad Gamsakhurdia were arrested and the National Guard of Georgia, the paramilitary force, divided the country into pro- and anti- government factions. The Mkhedrioni was another paramilitary force. At the same time, there was conflict in Karabakh – between the Armenians and the Azeris. In 1991, Azerbaijan re-established its independence from the Soviet Union, and the city of Kirovabad reverted to its original name, Ganja.

As soon as Gio and Goglik drove across the border into Azerbaijan, Gio has a feeling of freedom: “There was something about being in Azerbaijan that made me feel strangely, incomprehensively free.” This feeling didn’t last long. The dealer wasn’t at home, and in the darkness they lost their way. Their car was shot at and ambushed as they inadvertently entered Nagorno-Karabakh, the contested zone (contested by Armenia and Azerbaijan) – six kilometres from the front line of the war zone.

Gio was captured by the Azeris, separated from Goglik, and then captured by the Armenians. Three Russian journalists arrive by helicopter – two men, Misha and Slavika, and one woman, Marinka. “And out of the blue, a chopper-load of goateed Russian journalists turn up, brave champions of the democratic free press, and start running around with cameras in the middle of the fighting and writing a book about us.”

In Tbilisi he felt hemmed in by his father and his friends, and in Karabakh he feels trapped by Armenians Rafik and Vartan: “Nothing had changed.” What did he have to go home to? His dysfunctional family had forced the love of his life, Yana, from his home. And he hears groaning at night, but can’t find the source, which keeps him “in confustion.” He makes friends with an Armenian painter, Valera. The old guy liked Gio, and “anyone who was carrying a Kalashnikov, because apparently they were ‘doers’ rather than ‘talkers.’”

One night, with a gun from Valera, and a grenade in his pocket, Gio decides “so much needs saying … those Bolsheviks had driven us insane: Armenians, Azeris, and Georgians.” If it’s photographs the Russian journalists want, he’ll give them something to photograph.

A Georgian film of the novel was made in 2005 called Gaseirneba Karabaghshi.

The novel is first person conversational – with raw emotions from a confused youth in a dysfunctional home, easily led by, yet resentful of, his friends. Who’s to blame for his predicament? He asks himself that question, and answers it. The dialogue feels authentic, as does the ramblings of his agitated mind – resembling the style of teenager Holden Caulfield in J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, with Gio about five years older. So, like the debate about Caulfield, do the events in Karabakh change Gio? Has Gio found the freedom he is desperately looking for? It's interesting and well paced.