Agdam, the Karabakh "capital", is a few kilometers away from Stepanakert. The cab quickly covers those asphalt kilometers. In less than one hour, after crossing the fortress city Askeran and two military stations, the mountains are leaving place to the plains. An roadsign of the British NGO The Halo Trust indicating the mine clearance of the road, suddenly reminds that the recent History of Nagorno-Karabakh. Former azerbaijani region with an Armenian majority, the enclave went de facto under Armenian control after the conflict opposing Baku and Yerevan in 1993-94.

Agdam stands out to the visitor. Entirely destroyed, the former azerbaijani city offers a desolation landscape. A succession of burst open walls, now invaded by brushwwods. We do not meet a living soul. Only some farmers coming from the surrounding villages to grow watermelons and melons over summer and who live here sporadically.

The former inhabitants of Agdam deserted city in 1993, under the threat of Armenian military operations. Taking away with them furniture and personal belongings.
Displaced, those thousands Azerbaijai have been put by the governement of Heïdar Aliev –now succeeded by his son Ilham Aliev to the presidence of the country - into camps, real closed “cities” without any prospect, in the region of Barda and Sumgaït.

More than ten years after the conflict, Agdam is nothing more than a ghost city. Circled by fields balckened by the summer burnt, the city has been progressively plundered up to the last old iron pieces, sold by the local population on the markets.
Agdam, unhabited city. And yet daily crossed by minibuses connecting the « capital » to Martuni and to the mountains of Ashan.

The road is bumpy. But Arshak, our cabdriver, goes through Adgam at full speed. "Do not take pictures ", as he permanently reminds, between two cigarette’s puffs. Alert and worried at possible repercussions, he scrupulously conforms to official instructions : strict prohibition, except for a derogation form the Karabakh « ministery » of Defense, to take any picture of Agdam.

Taboo subject. Also Defense and Security subject. We are close to a supposed to be a frontline. Some tanks would be hiden in the heart of the city. And yet, at the entry of Agdam, there are only two young conscripts at the post.

Even if the Armenians entirely razed to the ground the city, the islamic cemetery located at the western entry of the city is intact. Cocking a snook at Azerbaijan, the persistence of those Muslim steles is not innocent. As the one of the minaret of the mosque.
The tragic crossing of Adgam, shapped like a T, over a few kilometers is sometimes punctuated, here, by the presence of some cows. There, a young farmer selling on his makeshift display shelf ten or so melons. "They come here over summer to cultivate and sell their products on the market of Stepanakert", explains Arsakh. "How to live here ? There is no water nor electricity".

The Armenian political will to not rehabilitate nor destroy the city is explicit. Agdam passively follows the negotiation process on-going between Yerevan and Baku.
The hypothesis to be handed back to Azerbaijanis is probable. Deserted and intentionally left as it is by the Karabakh authorities, Agdam is waitting. Like its fomers inhabitants. 10 km away from here. On the other side of the border.