“There is no guarantee that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia won’t start. It’s peaceful coexistence that we need, not a war.”
- Ali M. Hasanov
Via New York Times
BAKU, Azerbaijan — In a mostly empty Soviet-era building here on a recent morning, a 29-year-old woman pressed her eye against the scope of a sniper rifle, brown hair spilling over her shoulder, and took aim at virtual commandos darting between virtual trees.Gathered around her were fellow students — a decommissioned soldier, teenage boys with whispery mustaches, a 34-year-old communications worker in Islamic hijab. When sniper training was offered here in April, by an organization that provides courses on military preparation, the classes were a sensation, attracting three times as many students as the instructors could handle.
Many refugees from the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave within Azerbaijan have lived for years in squalid conditions, like those found in a building in Baku.