Monte: “I Am Seeing a Jackass Riding a Horse for the First Time”

The Karabakh people were waiting for a helicopter with reinforcements. A landing platform had been prepared at the edge of the forest, and Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan (Komandos) ordered the fighter Grikor to meet the guests.

It got dark. Grikor, hearing the wolves’ howling, lit up an old tire and sat by it all night. The soot from the burning tire was terrible. So terrible that Grikor changed colors.

The helicopter never arrived. In the morning, a “black man” in his black camouflage and with his black machine gun emerged from the forest. Of course, it was poor Grikor. He was humming the wonderful Armenian song “Khekhch Msheci” (“The poor man from Mush”), but the local people, who were waiting for reinforcements, did not know about that.

After blackened Grikor was noticed, a rumor was born that a black gunman had arrived in Karabakh in the helicopter. Then, there was a lot of laughter, but the rumor that a black man was fighting in the ranks of the Karabakh militiamen spread throughout the world.

Seeing a jackass riding a horse for the first time

During the battle, one of the villagers appeared on the front line on a white horse. A good target: after all, enemy positions were just five hundred meters away.

“Get down you jackass!” ordered Monte.

“Who is a jackass?” asked the offended rider.

“You thought you were the national hero Andranik? They’ll shoot you!”

“The Turks are the jackasses, they won’t hit me.”

“I have known for a long time that they are jackasses. But I am seeing a jackass riding a horse for the first time.”

Blyat

French Armenian Hovsep arrived at the position of Felix Gzogyan. Just as he arrived, the Azerbaijani units commenced their attack. Felix, as a real officer of the Soviet Army, giving commands, said “blyat” (“fuck”) almost after each word. Hovsep, with curiosity listening to the strange words, asked:

“Which equipment is called ‘blyat’?”

Send us another boy

Usually, an infantry fighting vehicle was called a “girl” on the radio, and a tank was called a “boy.” “So that no one guesses”, as says one famous love song.

An Azeri infantry fighting vehicle was firing. The turret of one of our tanks got jammed. The sergeant in charge of the position contacted the commander:

“The Azeri girl is beating us, and the barrel of our boy doesn’t work! Send another boy with a working barrel immediately!”

The Artsakh War in Leon Aghadzhanov’s military miniatures