by Genine Babakian
To Nazim Ragimov, it is easy to differentiate between Armenians and Azeris in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan. "Look into their eyes," Ragimov says. "In the Armenians' eyes you see fear."
Ragimov, himself a product of an Azeri-Armenian marriage, decided several years ago that, for the sake of his family, he had to bury his Armenian roots. To protect his mother, an Armenian, his wife, who is half Armenian, half Russian, and his baby daughter, he could show no fear.
Looking into Ragimov's eyes one thing is clear - he is careful. Careful not to reveal too much or to trust too soon. But it was his caution that enabled him to get his family safely away from Baku to Moscow, where they are one of many mixed Armenian-Azeri families living as refugees.
Baku was once lauded as one of the most integrated cities in the Soviet Union, where Azeris, Armenians, and all nationalities lived together peacefully, speaking Russian as their common language. But that changed radically after January of 1990, when, prompted by anti-Armenian sentiment resulting from the bloody conflict in Nagorno-Karabagh, throngs of Azeris waged a city-wide pogrom against the Armenians of Baku. For six days they dragged Armenians out of their homes, beat them in the street, and rounded them up as hostages to exchange for their captured brothers in Karabagh.
The Ragimovs had to act quickly. Nazim took his wife Anya and four-month old daughter to the home of his Azeri relatives, where Anya had to keep the baby from crying so that neighbors did not suspect they were hiding Armenians. Larissa, Nazim's mother, went along with an influential Azeri friend. "I still remember when he came to get me," Larissa recalls of that day. " 'Auntie Lara, come quickly to my house,' he said. 'It's not safe for you here.' " With his family safely hidden, Nazim flew to Moscow and filed an application for refugee immigration status with the United States Embassy.
After those six days of terror, many Armenians left the city under the protection of the Soviet Army. But for mixed families like the Ragimovs, their options were limited. They are, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, part of an international community that no one country will accept. While it is impossible for them to live in their native Baku, they are also not welcome in Armenia, and in Moscow, lacking official registration, it is difficult for them to find housing, employment, or even enroll their children in school.
The Ragimovs took their chances and decided to stay in Baku, keeping a low profile and destroying all documents that identified their nationality as Armenian. Nazim continued to work as a journalist while Anya stayed home with the baby, only going out to shop for food. Larissa, who was already on a pension, barely left their apartment at all.
"I was afraid to go out - even for medical care," Larissa says, a diabetic who regularly went to the hospital for treatment. On her last visit one of the nurses addressed her doctor in a voice loud enough for Larissa to hear. "She's Armenian, you know," the nurse said to the surprised doctor. "Do you think it's wise for you to treat her?" After that, Larissa refused to go back.
And then there were the surprise visits from members of the Azeri National Front harassing the Ragimovs. On more than one occasion Anya had to slam the door on those who rang the bell "looking for Armenians." And once, immediately after one of Nazim's regular calls to the U.S. Immigration Processing Center in Washington, D.C. to check on the status of their application, he received an anonymous phone call inquiring whether he was hiding Armenians.
By the time the Ragimovs realized it was too dangerous to remain in Baku, it was already too late to leave. Border patrols routinely checked trains and motorists leaving Azeri territory, arresting those with Armenian passports or without documents. Controls at the airport were even more stringent. The Ragimovs were trapped.
But thanks to the intervention of an Azeri friend in Parliament, who told airport officials that Nazim was on a special mission to Moscow for the Azeri government, the Ragimovs escaped to Moscow in March of 1992, where they have been living ever since.
They are luckier than most. Nazim was able to find work in a private firm and make enough money to rent a flat for his family. He even made a second trip to Baku to recover some of their possessions they left behind. But just a few miles away fifty refugee families from Baku live in a hotel for transients, many of them, like the Babayans, victims of the January 1990 pogrom.
Born in Baku and fluent in Azeri, Lev Babayan once would have laughed if you had asked him whether his life was endangered in his native city. But on January 13, 1990, walking along the same streets he had known for more than half a century, he was attacked and left in the road with two broken legs. His son-in-law, Leontif, who is half Azeri, found him and immediately flew him up to Moscow, and then came back for his wife, son, and mother-in-law. Leaving everything behind in their five-room apartment, they fled to Moscow, where they have been living in a refugee hotel for the past three years.
Surrounded by fellow hall-mates on the bed of his small hotel room, Leontif tries to justify why they stayed in Baku, aware that pogroms against Armenians had taken place in other parts of Azerbaijan. "We believed 100% that everything would be alright. It was only when we stopped believing that we saw how bad it really was," he says, causing his friends - all members of mixed families - to chuckle in agreement. They once believed that nationality played no part in Baku, but once Armenians and relatives of Armenians started losing their jobs, homes, and freedom, their image of idyllic Baku was shattered.
Like the Ragimovs, the Babayans have also applied for refugee status with the United States Embassy, granted to those determined by the U.S. government to have a "justified fear of persecution." While some mixed families from Baku have already been accepted by the U.S., those who filed applications after the events of January, 1990 remain in limbo. Without immediate relatives in the U.S., their refugee applications go unheeded in Washington. Priority is given instead to Soviet families who have immediate relatives, regardless of whether or not they have a greater likelihood of persecution.
These families have no choice but to stay in Moscow, where they are denied employment, pensions - even health care. To make matters worse, local Muscovites often treat them as second class citizens. "They think we're stealing bread from their mouths," as Nazim says.
"I don't mind so much for myself. I worry about my three year old," Leontif says. Soon he'll start asking questions. How do I explain to him where his homeland is? How do I tell him what a refugee is?"
