My century, my beast,
who will dare to look
into your eyes
to solder with blood
the spine of two eras?
The blood that builds
gushes out of earthly things;
the parasite only trembles
on the threshold of the new days.
The creature, so long as it has
enough life left,
must carry the backbone to the end;
and a wave plays upon the invisible spine...
And the buds will swell again,
and the green shoots will sprout.
But your spine has been smashed,
my marvellous, my unfortunate century.
And you look back, cruel and weak,
with an insane smile,
like a beast that has once been supple,
contemplating the tracks you have left.
The journey continues from Goris towards Nagorno Karabakh. The Armenian landscape and nature become barer and barer the closer we get to the mountains. In the evening, we decide for a last stop in the plains. We find out we are in the area of the ancient, neolithic astronomical observatory of Zorats Khar in Karahunj, “the Armenian Stonehenge”.
The guide [XXXXX] approaches us and starts telling about the genesis of those stones. While the visit continues, with images of huge megaliths carved for divining and observing stars, the guide says the settlement is the most ancient astronomical observatory in the world and shows us how to calculate the time with the figure and observe stars through the holes in the stones.
Exterior night. Transfer to Karabakh. The car rides the Lachin corridor. The border guards warn the group we are entering the territory of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh, where peace had never arrived and the cease-fire lasts from 1994.