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A rare love story that ended in the attack in Russia

2024-03-30 09:43:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

A photo of a handsome young couple has been shared several times on social media in the Caucasus following last week's deadly terrorist attack at a concert hall in Moscow.

Lilit Israelian, with long black hair falling over her floral dress, was Armenian. Her husband, Vugar Huseynov, with close-cropped black hair, was Azerbaijani. Both of them were among the victims of the March 22 attack.

For many people in the Caucasus, a rare love was killed along with them.

"Being Armenian and Azerbaijani, facing all that opposition, falling in love and getting married is such a rare thing," one person wrote on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

"And then, three or four terrorists come and take their lives as if it were nothing. Lord, give them the most beautiful corner of heaven."

Huseynov and Israeli worked at Moscow's Vnukovo International Airport. The aviation services company, UTG, said Huseynov was a current employee, while Israelian had worked earlier.

Her family told Russian media that the couple had a one- to one-and-a-half-year-old child. Little was reported about the couple's story, but it is safe to say that it must have faced strong resistance from the respective communities.

In a 2009 poll, 92 percent of Armenians said they would oppose an Armenian woman marrying an Azerbaijani man. The corresponding figure among Azerbaijanis for Armenians was 99 percent.

In Soviet times, marriages between Armenians and Azerbaijanis were more common in countries with large mixed populations, such as Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, where ethnic Armenians made up between 10 and 20 percent of the population.

Intermarriage was "an icon of Baku's cosmopolitanism," wrote Laurence Broers, a fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the London-based Chatham House Institute.

But when the conflict over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh broke out and the Soviet Union disintegrated, this era of coexistence in Armenia and Azerbaijan came to an end.

Almost all ethnic Armenians left Azerbaijan - or were expelled - and vice versa.

The few that remained were usually people from mixed marriages or their children, who, in many cases, kept this aspect of their lives secret.

In countries where Armenians and Azerbaijanis continued to live as neighbors, such as Georgia or Russia, intermarriage still occurs, but is extremely rare. Russia does not keep records of inter-ethnic marriages - making it impossible to know how many Armenian-Azerbaijani couples there are.

"I am half-Armenian and half-Azerbaijani and I am proud of it. This is such shocking news," one Reddit user wrote after the couple's murder.

"There are very few such couples left. What a cruel world! May they rest in peace and may their child grow up knowing that his mom and dad's love defied cultural boundaries to bring him to life. I hope their child grows up healthy, strong and proud of his roots," he wrote.

In addition to his rare family history, Huseynov was also singled out for his bravery during the attack.

Eyewitness videos captured him trying to use the overturned tables to protect his wife and other victims, as well as to fend off the attackers.

"Colleagues describe Vugar as resourceful and kind," wrote the Russian Telegram channel Mash, which was the first to report the identities of Huseynov and the Israeli.

After news of the tragic fate of the couple and at least 137 other people who were killed spread, among the reactions of grief there were also rude comments that reflected the deep-rooted rivalry that has resulted from repeated wars and ethnic violence since the 1990s.

"Married an Armenian and got karma," wrote one commenter on an Azerbaijani Telegram page.

"How did they give the girl to the Turk? Are they also Azerbaijanis?” wrote another commenter on an Armenian page, referring to the close linguistic and historical ties between Azerbaijanis and Turks.

But such comments quickly received backlash.

"Let their memory make peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan." No more wars in the 21st century,” wrote one Platform X user.

"May my Armenian sister and her Azerbaijani husband rest in peace," wrote another. "Don't let the political world destroy us"./ REL