Officially named “We Are Our Mountains,” this monumental nine-meter-high statue, erected in 1967 north of Stepanakert, has been renamed by Armenians as “Grandmother and Grandfather.”
This reflects the deep affection they feel for these figures, who represent their people’s identity and are featured at the center of the coat of arms of Nagorno-Karabakh. The sculptor, Sargis Baghdasaryan, was inspired by his own grandparents to model the elderly couple, who, in the absence of a pedestal, seem to surge directly from the earth. The woman’s face, whose shape evokes the surrounding hills, is adorned with a stylized representation of the traditional headdress covering its lower part.
When invited to comment on his work, the artist, now deceased, stated: “They are the people, they are the land, they are ourselves, our mountains. These people were born here, their millennia-old roots are here, and they are the true owners of this land and nature.”
In the region, before the Second War, wedding ceremonies often included taking pictures in front of these ancestors carved in tuff stone, as if placing the couple under their protection.
Recently, a thesis has emerged in Azerbaijan claiming that this sculpture, created under the Soviet regime, was funded with Azerbaijani money and that Armenians have reappropriated it for nationalist purposes. Some voices have called for its destruction, and the back of the monument was recently soiled with various inscriptions, some mocking Armenia and Armenians.
