Papik and Tatik.

Two men? No, a couple.

Two young people? No, two old people.

Two bodies? No, a front.

What is the meaning of all this? Proof by contradiction.

What is the idea of all this? The human dignity.

It is with these questions that we wanted to frame the symbols of Artsakh to show that what is known is unrecognized and what is unknown is in need to become known.

Artsakh resisted. But who knows it?

Artsakh is free. But who understands it?

To know the significance of this we have to pay due attention to it. If we do not realize the details of death it is useless to attach importance to life which is nothing but a detail.

For Artsakh details start in Armenia. Its residents say to you that it is distant and different. And it is useless to throw these ideas away from your spirit, when you are in the vehicle transferring you seven hours away from the land of the stones to the high black garden. Geography starts its lesson from geostrategy for those who want to hear it. For, without this geography it is impossible to understand humanity. And without our mountains it is difficult to understand us.

On the road leading to Stepanakert it is easy to feel the subtlety of the paradox. The difficulty in access slowly transforms into access to difficulty. The latter one clearly appears with the discovery of the orange-colored heads planted into the red land underneath the blue sky. They are here; immobile in space as if they better cross time in this way. They do not look; they see. They do not show; they prove. Their existence is their entire substance; and their substance is the quintessence of armenity. They say nothing about the past, because they address the future. They do not address the Armenias because they warn the enemy. Their entire life is nothing but a target and their target is to live, no matter who, no matter what.

Yet, it is not in this place where we really comprehend the symbolic. Birth does not suffice; knowledge is required as well and this one is somewhere else. For, it is in the city of Stepanakert where the explanation of Artsakh’s enigma lies. To solve it we have to reach the wooden door entirely carved out of tradition. Here, in the Museum of Artsakh’s history we may see our grand-parents in traditional outfits. But, we should not make the mistake to see the object from the museum point of view only. Otherwise, we take the risk of not comprehending the semantics of this syntax.
It is not us looking at our grand-parents it is they who are looking at us. They taught us resistance and sacrifice and without hoping they are waiting the lesson of liberty. They lived because they were sentenced to it and they gave birth to us because they had to die. However they were incapable of denying the oath given to our mountains. Therefore they were obliged to look at them even afterwards.

Thus, the artist decided to pay tribute with his sculpture. Now, it is up to us to honor them. For, without our action it is compromise that will come along and with it the decapitation of the stone. Artsakh’s symbolic gives us the choice of interpretation. By our will we see Papik and Tatik either as abandoned beings or as elements constituting armenity; ones decided not to surrender our land, as liberated Hays.