[Beyond Borders]
This column explores the key issues shaping life in the South Caucasus, focusing on how the divergent paths of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan reflect the region’s complex histories, economic developments, and political shifts. While new generations in these countries grow more isolated from one another due to language barriers and conflicting national trajectories, the same is true for local policymakers, who are often more familiar with distant capitals than their immediate neighbors. Each nation seeks its own path, sometimes in conflict with others, while international actors often treat the region as a whole, reluctant to craft policies specific to individual states. Drawing on personal experience with the region’s revolutions, conflicts and transformations, Olesya brings you Beyond Borders—a column exploring how decisions made in one corner of the South Caucasus impact all who live there.
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Just days ago, the first trains carrying wheat from Russia and Kazakhstan arrived in Armenia through Azerbaijan — a remarkable development that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. For more than three decades, Armenia and Azerbaijan treated each other as bitter, unyielding adversaries, even in the smallest details of transport logistics. At times, foreign freight companies were forbidden from using the same railcars for shipments to both countries.
If steps like these continue, they strengthen the sense that a new era has begun. The recent wheat shipments originated from countries in an economic union with Armenia, simplifying documentation. Armenia and Azerbaijan will still need to work out practical details if transit shipments are to arrive from other countries. Direct deliveries will also require careful negotiation.
This is particularly important news for Armenia, which for decades has endured trade restrictions because of its conflict with Azerbaijan. Yerevan had long sought transit through Azerbaijani territory, including immediately after the 2020 war, but Baku conditioned it on resolving the “corridor issue” in southern Armenia. The Washington agreements finally moved this discussion forward, allowing the first real test of cross-border transit.
Another key aspect is that opening transit through Azerbaijan helps ease Yerevan’s long-standing concern that the Washington agreements might work only one way – benefitting Baku while excluding Armenian freight. The recent delivery of wheat offers a hopeful sign of reciprocity, a principle Yerevan has emphasized since the start of transport negotiations.
First Visits
Alongside the transit news, a delegation of Azerbaijani experts and activists visited Yerevan, spending a day in meetings and touring the capital. A reciprocal visit by Armenian experts to Baku is now expected.
These meetings are significant. Their symbolism lies in showing that contact, even after decades of hostility, is possible. Notably, the Azerbaijani delegation included outspoken propagandists, such as Farhad Mammadov, who have spent their careers promoting hostility toward Armenians while presenting it as advancing their country’s interests. Unfortunately, many in Yerevan instead focused their criticism on the delegation’s female member, reflecting the entrenched masculine tone still shaping perceptions of this conflict.
The broader point is clear: if even radical figures can travel to Yerevan and engage with Armenian colleagues, contact is possible in principle. Notably, after the visit some members of the Azerbaijani delegation had to soften their rhetoric, portraying themselves as promoters of peace rather than advocates of war.
These visits also underscore the challenges of implementing the Washington agreements. Baku continues to insist that Armenians and Azerbaijanis have no direct contact during the launch of transit through Armenia’s southern route. To accommodate this, an American company will oversee parts of the process—an arrangement meant to reassure Baku but one that also raises transport costs. Still, if contact is possible for well-known propagandists, it’s worth asking why it cannot also take place between professionals like customs or border officials.
Deeds Alongside Words
Perhaps the most important question is whether these steps can convince societies in both countries that peace is possible. Many people have lived for years, or their entire lives, believing that enemies exist across the border. Some have lost loved ones in war, while others have become refugees. Convincing them that a new era has arrived is no simple task.
Symbolic gestures without tangible results may risk deepening the sense that nothing ever truly changes. This decades-long conflict has seen countless treaties signed, principles declared and high-profile summits only for achievements to be rolled back and tensions sometimes to escalate into new wars. Skepticism, therefore, runs deep. Many quietly predict a few years of “peace theater” before everything returns to the way it was.
If this attempt fails too, few would be surprised. Armenia and Azerbaijan were formed through conflict and their institutions and bureaucracies know far more about fighting than building peace. The perception of the other as an enemy runs so deep that words, even when spoken daily by the highest officials, are not enough.
Evidence of peace is needed. Transit shipments through Azerbaijan into Armenia are one such step. If these shipments gradually lower flour prices in Armenian shops, people will notice the difference.
Another crucial step is addressing the daily challenges faced by people living in the shadow of the conflict. Along Armenia and Azerbaijan’s long, tense frontier, hundreds of thousands of people continue to confront difficulties directly linked to and shaped by years of fighting.
Before the 2020 war, Baku and Yerevan had agreed on a temporary ceasefire along state borders. Even that brief period of calm made a huge difference for people in the border zones. During my visits to villages in Tavush at the time, residents told me how for the first time in nearly 30 years they repaired roofs and planted vineyards even near military positions. For the first time in decades, they felt a sense of normalcy and hope.
Last summer when I returned to the same areas no one mentioned fear of shooting any more. Residents were building so many new homes that the government temporarily paused subsidies to manage the volume. New vineyards and gardens covered dozens of hectares. Villagers spoke mainly about organizing irrigation and drinking water systems, which could not happen without cooperation with Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani border villages face similar challenges. In some areas, residents suffer kidney problems because water scarcity forces them to dig artesian wells with high salinity. In Azerbaijan’s southern border regions where displaced families are returning, concerns about water pollution from the Armenian side are common. These issues require dialogue to resolve.
For people, like in these borderlands, peace will only come when daily life stops being shaped by conflict. Achieving this is difficult but possible. It requires support from national leaders, but it must be driven and implemented by local communities.
Only then will peace gain real substance, change lives and take root. Only then will returning to war become significantly harder, complementing the high-level declarations made in Washington and elsewhere.
