SHUSHI, NAGORNY KARABAKH, JUNE 2000

Arabic writing above the entrance to one of Shushi's two ruined mosques

Minarets on one of the mosques

Interior of mosque - the floor is covered with bits of broken glass and rubble. There is also a ruined Turkish bathhouse in the town, which was populated mainly by Azerbaijanis up until the late 1980s, but mainly by Armenians until 1918

Overgrown entrance to mosque

Albert (my driver from Abovyan, near Yerevan) and Grayr (Karabakh foreign minister's driver and bodyguard, who cadged a lift with us) outside restored 19th-century church in Shushi. A brand new church was also built in the town on top of a former Azerbaijani ammunition depot. The Azerbaijanis used to bombard Karabakh capital Stepanakert every day from that spot, the Armenians say

Icon on wall of Shushi church. The two churches are the only undamaged buildings in the town, but they are soulless, unlike the ancient Armenian churches we saw on the way, which seemed literally to have grown out of the rocks

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