Stepanakert — Nagorno-Karabakh may have quietly dropped out of international television, radio and newspaper reports, but the small "independent republic" is still there and has no intention of going away.
Out of the limelight, the government of Nagorno-Karabakh is busy building a new infrastructure, improving communications within the enclave, and enhancing education, health and social services for its estimated 150,000 inhabitants.
Agricultural output was so good last year that the government "sold" 5,000 tons of wheat to Armenia, and plans to double that amount this year.
Utility lines have been mostly repaired, traffic lights are working on key intersections in the capital, streets are clean and thousands of war refugees are returning to their villages.
Experts are busy demining vast tracts of agricultural lands, once the scene of major tank and artillery battles before the war was pushed away from Nagorno- Karabakh's major Armenian centers of population.
The last shells that fell on Stepanakert were more than two years ago and an enclave-wide ceasefire has been in place for nearly a year.
"We are doing fine without the international publicity. We spend half our time working on the peace process and the rest of our time is devoted to building the foundations of a new state — without foreign aid or recognition," Foreign Minister Arkadi Ghoukassian said in a recent interview in his office in Stepanakert.
Enhanced by its military victories over oil-rich and vastly larger and populous Azerbaijan from which it seceded in 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh is renaming villages, opening new roads, improving irrigation and building a national army to defend itself against an enemy which denies its very existence.
Lachin, the small devastated village along the strategic narrow corridor named after itself that links Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, is now called Kashatagh.
The nearby village of Zabouk is now called Aghavnou (pigeon), its old Armenian name before Nagorno- Karabakh was given to then Soviet Azerbaijan by Stalin in 1921.
While Kashatagh is still mostly deserted and in ruins years after its "liberation", hundreds of Armenian families have started to move into its surrounding villages with financial and material help from the Stepanakert government.
And with the battlefronts pushed away from major population centers, an estimated 2,500 people have already moved into the Lachin region and more families, especially farmers, are being encouraged to do so.
"National security is our number one priority, but we cannot run the country with just a battlefront mentality. There is more to living in Karabakh than just fighting a war," a government official said.
"We cannot neglect the hospitals, schools, bakeries, power stations, roads, telephones, public transportation, police and other services which are essential for the well-being and survival of our people," he said.
According to government statistics, 21,800 students are presently enrolled in the Nagorno-Karabakh's 157 schools, and 2,150 in Karabakh University. The region also has nine civilian and four military hospitals and 267 doctors.
"One of our main objectives is to improve the socioeconomic status of the region. The no-war-no-peace situation has not triggered an exodus out of Karabakh. On the contrary, thousands of people who fled during the early years of the war are returning to their homes and lands," Prime Minister Leonard Petrossian said in an interview in his Stepanakert office”. In fact, our minimum wage is 1/3 more than what a worker gets in Armenia. We have 24 hours of electricity thanks to Armenia which covers 60 percent of our energy needs," he said.
Water is abundant, and whatever is not earmarked for agricultural and domestic use is collected in the Sarsang Reservoir which operates a small hydroelectric generator providing the remaining 40 percent of Nagorno-Karabakh's electricity supply.
A recent contract with a Russian company will establish a much needed radio telephone network linking all the Armenian villages and the larger population centers of Nagorno-Karabakh. Work is also underway on a number of country roads to connect the isolated villages with each other and the regional capital of Stepanakert.
Under Azerbaijani administration, roads from one Armenian village to the other were routed through larger Azerbaijani towns. The same was true with electricity, telephone, water and gas.
Changing all this needs money — one of the most limited commodities of Nagorno Karabakh.
With industrial production down by more than 70 percent and agriculture only just picking up momentum after years of neglect due to the war of independence, government subsidies are essential.
"We decided against privatization of agricultural land because the farmers were unable to run the farms on their own. What we have done instead is provide lifelong leases to bring in some revenue for the central government which in turn gives the farmers free agricultural equipment and seed along with buying his produce.
"This is a financial burden on the government, but it is essential for the survival of farming," Petrossian said. But where does the government get the money to meet its commitments to the farmers, schools, hospitals, and the thousands of people on its payroll, including the army.
Officials say monetary and humanitarian assistance from the Armenian Diaspora was not more than about 1.7 million U.S. dollars in 1994, but most of that amount went directly to various non-governmental institutions.
"We get everything on credit from Armenia, including 60 percent of our electricity for which we do not pay along with a lot of other essential commodities and goods.
"We could not meet our budgetary needs without help from Armenia. What we collect in terms of taxes and electricity bills are just not enough," he said.
Like the financial credits that serve as a life-savers raft and the "Lachin Corridor" that is the umbilical cord between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, close intergovernmental coordination between Yerevan and Stepanakert helps secure the enclave's diplomatic presence in world forums.
Because of the lack of international recognition, the citizens of Nagorno- Karabakh are issued Armenian passports with special permits to travel abroad. The money in circulation is the Armenian Dram and Yerevan serves as the launching pad for nearly all of Stepanakert's political contacts with the outside world.
"The world is still not ready to extend all-out diplomatic recognition to Nagorno-Karabakh. But this does not bother us because we are here to stay and we are not going away," Foreign Minister Arkadi Ghoukassian said.
The Yerevan-educated Ghoukassian, who holds degrees in Russian language and literature, says diplomatic recognition may be easier to secure if Armenians around the world were united and ready to speak in one voice.
"We all have to hit the same nail at the same time in order to get our view across," he said. At the moment, a Nagorno-Karabakh foreign ministry envoy is stationed at the Armenian Embassy in Moscow while another works out of an Armenian Diaspora organization's office in Paris.
"This is not enough, but there is little more we can do on the diplomatic front because of financial restrictions. We just cannot afford keeping dozens of people abroad, including the United States and Europe. We need help on this front," he said.
Having survived repeated Azerbaijani offensives, neglect by the international community and financial hardships, what is the future for Nagorno-Karabakh?
Prime Minister Petrossian sums it up, "In a nutshell, we will not give up our lands before we guarantee our right to self-determination and secure borders. No one can decide our future except ourselves, the people of Nagorno- Karabakh.
"Azerbaijan should recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as a party to the conflict by opening direct negotiations with us and not just through others. We are ready to talk."
