It was only when Father Mesrop and his congregation arrived in late 2023 that its door was opened, and sacred music filled its high roof. In 1992 Father Mesrop was posted to Shusha, which the Armenian forces had just captured. Father Mesrop did not have time to collect anything from the church where he had served for nearly thirty years. In Askeran Father Mesrop planted vegetables in the church’s courtyard, thanking God that he was outside the city. ____________________________Excerpted from Hinterlands: The New Cold War Brewing at the Peripheries of the West by Hannah Lucinda Smith.