"We Are Our Mountains" monument
Tatik-Papik; Mamik yev Papik
"We Are Our Mountains", widely known as Tatik-Papik, is a Soviet-era monument outside Stepanakert that became the civic emblem of Artsakh. Unlike medieval monasteries, its heritage value is modern and political: it condensed Karabakh Armenian rootedness into an image of elderly mountain grandparents emerging from the land. After the 2023 Azerbaijani takeover, the monument reportedly remained standing, but its meaning changed radically because the population that used it as a state and civic symbol had fled. The site therefore raises a different preservation question. Can a national symbol remain intact when the political community that gave it meaning is absent? For Azerbaijan it is now an object inside restored territory; for Armenians it is the icon of a lost homeland.
"We Are Our Mountains", widely known as Tatik-Papik, is a Soviet-era monument outside Stepanakert that became the civic emblem of Artsakh. Unlike medieval monasteries, its heritage value is modern and political: it condensed Karabakh Armenian rootedness into an image of elderly mountain grandparents emerging from the land. After the 2023 Azerbaijani takeover, the monument reportedly remained standing, but its meaning changed radically because the population that used it as a state and civic symbol had fled. The site therefore raises a different preservation question. Can a national symbol remain intact when the political community that gave it meaning is absent? For Azerbaijan it is now an object inside restored territory; for Armenians it is the icon of a lost homeland.