Shepherds herd a flock of sheep near the Lachin corridor, a mountainous pass connecting the NKR to Armenia.
The NKR had a state-of-the-art airport, but Azerbaijan threatened to shoot down all air traffic.
With its sheer cliffs and hairpin turns, the Lachin corridor was NKR’s lifeline to the outside world.
A stripped Soviet-era infantry fighting vehicle rusts in a verdant field in north-central Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan and Armenia deployed similar BMPs in the early 90s when the Soviet Union imploded and the South Caucasus flared into the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
NKR soldiers stand guard near a road leading to Talish, Nagorno-Karabakh, less than a mile from the Line of Contact.
Talish saw intense street fighting and artillery barrages during 2016’s Four-Day War between the NKR Defense Army and Azerbaijan Armed Forces, which were repelled.
Most of the town’s 450 residents fled though some men stayed to fight.
NKR soldiers pray in the ancient Church of Mother Mary near the Line of Contact in Talish, Nagorno-Karabakh.
The NKR was 95% ethnic Armenian, their ancestors having adopted Christianity in 301 A.D.
Female soldiers did not traditionally engage in frontline fighting, instead filling support roles in the NKR Defense Army.
Harutyun Agasarkisian fields questions for a foreign journalist after Sunday services at the Church of Mother Mary in Talish, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Agasarkisian, a 60-year-old Armenian-American jeweler, said he raised three sons in Dallas, TX before relocating to Atlanta, GA, where he succeeded in lobbying to have the NKR recognized by the state as an independent sovereignty.
Agasarkisian said he immediately flew east to join the war effort at the onset of the Four-Day War.
Near the Line of Contact in Mataghis, Nagorno-Karabakh, a memorial reads:
The mist that settled on my path
brought me eternal sleep,
and the cruel death laid hold of me,
leaving my dreams unfulfilled.
Near the Murovdag mountain range, NKR soldiers thread through slit trenches on the Line of Contact in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The decades old, World War I-style trench system wound along the NKR-Azerbaijan border for over 100 miles.
On the Line of Contact, an NKR soldier stores a Kalashnikov magazine.
Armenia armed the NKR with discounted weapons purchased from Russia, which also sold weapons to Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan also bought weapons from Israel, Turkey, the United States and several European nations, among others.
Flush with petrodollars, Azerbaijan’s defense spending far exceeded that of Armenia and, by proxy, the NKR.
An NKR soldier lifts his helmet while facing a disputed landscape.
Estimates put the total number of troops facing off on the Line of Contact at 40,000, making the NKR-Azerbaijan border among the most militarized in the world.
NKR Defense Army Major Rudika Akopyan spins open an armored firing port on the Line of Contact in Nagorno-Karabakh, showing Azerbaijani lines barely 100 yards away.
Skirmishes with small arms and light artillery had been constant since the 1994 truce.
To elude potential sniper fire, visitors were warned not to expose themselves in open fighting positions for more than three seconds.
An NKR machine gunner mans a firing position on the Line of Contact in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Perimeter defenses like old tires and tin cans strung in barbed wire were prevalent throughout the trench system with fortifications and mines filling the no man’s land between NKR and Azerbaijani lines.
NKR soldiers returning from the Line of Contact take a roadside smoke break while en route to Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh’s capital city.
A camouflaged bus stop stands near Tigranakert, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Buildings decorated in digital camouflage bear evidence of fighting in Mataghis, Nagorno-Karabakh.
During the Four-Day War, Azerbaijan tried unsuccessfully to capture the town of 400, located near a valuable hydroelectric plant.
Most of Mataghis’ civilian population fled south after being shelled by artillery.
A sign in English and Russian warns of mines near Mokhratagh, Nagorno-Karabakh.
According to the HALO Trust, a U.S.-backed British de-mining nonprofit, 160mm rockets were fired into area fields during the Four-Day War.
Each rocket scattered 104 bomblets, which did not always explode on impact, posing serious risks to farmers and curious children.
HALO Trust explosive ordinance disposal teams sweep a field for unexploded munitions near Mokhratagh, Nagorno-Karabakh.
A spokesman for the explosive-clearing nonprofit said they had destroyed 230 submunitions found in the area after the Four-Day War.
The HALO Trust reported that Nagorno-Karabakh’s causality rate for unexploded ordinance was among the highest in the world with 25% of victims being children.
A doctor at Stepanakert Central Military Hospital pulls back a sheet to reveal the residual limb of an NKR soldier who stepped on an anti-personnel landmine in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Landmines posed generational hazards as they could maim and kill decades after being planted.
An NKR soldier peppered by shrapnel from an artillery shell during the Four-Day War shows his bandaged wounds to a TV crew at Stepanakert Central Military Hospital in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The hospital ward housed several soldiers wounded by artillery, mines and small arms fire.
An X-ray machine stands with a monitor showing a patient’s chest at Stepanakert Central Military Hospital in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Stepanakert was besieged and fiercely bombarded for months during the 1992 Nagorno-Karabakh War. Over two decades later, the hospital still lined its hallways with lanterns should future attacks terminate its power supply.
NKR forces circle in a mountainous landscape north of Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Shushi was a strategically critical strongpoint during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. In 1992, Armenian forces captured the town from Azerbaijan, signaling a major military victory that turned the war in Armenia’s favor.
A resident of Martakert, Nagorno-Karabakh steps from his home, which he said was hit by an Azerbaijani artillery shell while he and his wife were at a local restaurant at the start of the Four-Day War.
Martakert, situated less than two miles from the Line of Contact, saw intense fighting in 1992. When the Four-Day War commenced, many of its 5,000 residents fled.
A man in Martakert, Nagorno-Karabakh offers a freshly cut rose to a visiting female journalist.
Civilians and military personnel parade through Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh on May 9, 2016. The usual columns of tanks were absent.
Called Yeraton, the holiday commemorates three events:
On May 9, 1992, Armenian forces captured the strategic mountain town of Shushi during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, effectively turning the tide of the conflict.
That same day, the NKR Defense Army was created.
May 9 also commemorates Victory Day in the Patriotic War, when Nazi Germany surrendered to Allied forces in 1945. Several hundred thousand ethnic Armenians fought in WWII and suffered staggering losses.
A man rejoins the annual Victory Day parade in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh after placing a rose between ceremonial guards at the foot of a statue of Ivan Bagramyan.
Bagramyan was a celebrated Soviet military commander of Armenian descent who fought in both world wars. During World War II he commanded troops in major offensives that collapsed Nazi Germany’s Eastern Front.
Children displaced by the Four-Day War are reflected in a table at the Nairi Hotel in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Thousands of women and children fled towns along the Line of Contact while men stayed to defend and rebuild their homes.
Soldiers ride toward the Line of Contact near Tigranakert, Nagorno-Karabakh.
The NKR secreted its exact troop strength, but, as it had 150,000 citizens, the common refrain was that the de facto republic had 150,000 soldiers prepared to defend the contested territory it called home.
An NKR soldier exits the Nairi Hotel in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh while a TV plays a military film above the flags of Armenia and the NKR, their denizens inextricably linked.