After 3 or 4 hours in one of the two sightseeing busses of Արշավներ ակումբ we came to the border of Karabakh where some ex-pat Armenians and I had to show the passports. It took a while before we could take “our” photos in front of the Artsakh-sign.
In the opposite direction you could see the wounds a goldmine made to the mountains.
On the way to Stepanakert we visited some touristic spots, mainly churches and monuments so it took us the whole day for the 320km from Yerevan to reach Stepanakert.
The first was the monastery Dadivank, rooting to the times of an Apostle.
the black square shows the appearance before renovation
Grass tile roof
Connected to the next church , in Gandzasar, is the Mashtots Matenadaran Gandzasar Scientific Cultural Center, keeping precious manuscrpits and books of Karabakh a crazy guy with a horse who wanted to take lots of pictures of Hasmik and his depressive horse.
Then we came to an artistical place, called, lion place in Gandzasar
Hasmik learned a tongue twister in Karabkhian language:
Kas ys qis ys pores txis ys, gides ys, Ta qefs kas a? Galis es, gnum es, poris xpum es, mtatsum es, vor durs galis a?
that, as we all know, means: You go, come back, hit my tummy and you think I like it?
And before we arrived in Stepanakert, we made a last stop at the monument of Grandma-Grandpa, officially “We are our mountains”, Dedo – Babo
On the way we saw this wall with license plates. We had been told those are from tanks. (To be honest, i didnt know that they have license plates like cars – license for what?)
Now watch this picture two times, please:
First imagine, it would be the numbers of Armenian tanks destroyed by Azerbaijani – it would be a memorial.
And then imagine it would show the numbers of tanks the Armenian army would have destroyed….
We checked in in the hotel (2 times, as we by mistake first got a big, beautiful room and then a more “realistic” room, fitting for us.) 
and looked around in the city. Hasmik asked a mother with 2 boys for directions and soon they had a lively talk about politics. 
We saw some beautiful places, (with the zombie car children driving on a main square), heard a brass band playing the Radetzky march, had dinner accompanied by “black orange”-juice which in fact was blueberry juice and, on the way, tried to express in words the special atmosphere of Stepanakert.
State commission on Prisoners of war, Hostages and missing Persons
Before schoolstart, buy your books at Saturday night in the street
Scaffolding, if he wants to climb off the pedestal?
The first visits on the next day were fortresses, the first one in Tigranakert,
looking to the border to Azerbaidjan, 6km
then we came to the market where you could see lots of fresh, dried or pickled fruits and vegetables and bought something for lunch.
The afternoon brought us to a canyon with the picturesque waterfall Zontikner (in Russian it means umbreallas)
and that was the highlight of the predetermined program of this day.
So we met for dinner at the hotel with Nasik and Haykush and then went the Bardak Pub (which means “mess”) they had found on the first evening.
This was a great place, founded, designed and visited by authentic people.
better not use your smartphone – therapy would be a nail
The last day, we first visited the cemetery of Stepanakert that left a deep impression
and soon after to a tank where people liked to pose
and then to another great natural site, the Hunot gorge.
After going there, our group of tourists spontaneously began to dance. In Shushi was another church, in this case with a room with very special acoustics, you could hear whispers from one wall to the opposite side. And there were two professionally cute boys.
It was time to go back and a long ride on that bus began. And ride means a lot of jumping and shaking as road conditions and our cool driver did their best to make also this part of the trip unforgettable.
Hasmik and I had a lot to talk about our fellow travellers and their mind sets, from quite open-minded to dominated by hatred.
On the way home we wanted to use a taxi. The driver started driving in one direction, then to another and after a while and some hints and questions he admitted that he doesn’t know the way and asked us to leave. The next one knew better but asked if it would be ok to pick up someone, in the end this was useful as this person knew better how to go….