Khalisa and the Bloody Path of Vazgen Sargsyan

The village of Khalisa in the Ararat district of Armenia is today called Noyakert. The name was changed, as the names of hundreds of Azerbaijani villages were changed across the entire territory of Armenia. By the end of 1988, not a single Azerbaijani remained in Khalisa. Those who had lived here for generations were expelled over the course of several November days in 1988 amid threats, beatings, searches, and passports torn to shreds on the road. Among those who led the expulsion, going from yard to yard with a plastic bag collecting gold and other valuables taken from those being expelled, was a young nationalist named Vazgen Sargsyan - the future "sparapet," future Minister of Defense, future national hero of Armenia, whose name today graces the military academy of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia and one of the largest streets in Yerevan.

This is stated in the latest episode of the Caliber.Az YouTube channel.

"No, this is not a reconstruction by the Azerbaijani side. This is a retelling of the testimony of an eyewitness - an Armenian woman, an active participant in the so-called 'Karabakh movement,' the biological sister of the commander of one of the first nationalist units, who personally knew Sargsyan and his circle. Svetlana Markaryan laid it all out in the book 'Krakots tikunkich' - 'Shot in the Back.' The book was published in Armenian, lay in obscurity for years, and entered the broader Russian-language space thanks to researcher and blogger Albert Isakov, who discovered it, translated it, and published the key excerpt on his YouTube channel with a direct link to the original. This turns Markaryan's text into a public document that Yerevan can no longer bypass or declare an Azerbaijani fake. The document exists. It is in Armenian. The author is an Armenian woman," the video material notes.