Passport, cash - Kristina Iwanjan stuffs both into a backpack, pulls a thick jacket over her pajamas and runs off. It's just after midnight and the sky over Yermuk is roaring. On the road, Ivanjan later recalls, she encountered people who thought the bright lights in the woods were fireworks. A celebration, perhaps, in honor of the southern Armenian resort, where on that September 13, after two years of corona pandemic, it was high season again.
The "Olympia Sanatorium," a mousy gray colossus with 52 rooms where Ivanjan works as manager, is also fully occupied at the time.
When she arrived at the "Olympia," the staff was already directing the guests down the stairs, reports Iwanjan.
During the day, visitors were still being pampered with essential oils in the underground treatment rooms.
Now the thick cellar walls serve as a bunker, and the massage chairs and sofas are converted into camp beds.
It soon became clear to everyone what Ivanjan had long suspected: Azerbaijan was attacking Armenian territory after decades of fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Other regions in the border area between Armenia and Azerbaijan are also under large-scale attack.
A first in the conflict between the two countries.
Text: Anna-Theresa Bachman
