Shushi, city of refugees in Nagorno Karabach

Because of its situation on a mountain top the city of Shushi is sometimes covered with clouds and very foggy. Then the atmosphere can become rather spooky. In the past the population of Shushi was mixed and for a large part from Azerbaijan origin. But during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan which ended in 1994 Shushi was completely destroyed and there were no Azerbaijani left. They all had to flee to Azerbaijan and Shushi became inhabited by Armenians only. Today the number of inhabitants is only one third of what it has been before the war and many of the appartment bloques as well as traditional houses and several mosques are still in ruin, though also a large new Armenian cathedral has been built. Most of the present inhabitants are Armenians who had to flee from Azerbaijan during the war. Some of them try to reconstruct the old houses while others live in quite poor conditions in partly destroyed appartments. Most of them have to heat their houses with firewood as there is no supply of gas. Shushi is very much a marker of etnic conflict