The city and the river
When we told Hambardzum Matevosyan, Pashinyan's chief advisor, that we were going to Meghri the next day, his eyes lit up: this was the gateway to Armenia, the country's most important city. Meghri, Armenian for “city of honey”, is the southernmost point of the country, 376 kilometers or an eight-hour drive from Yerevan. The small town of 4,500 inhabitants is located in the immediate vicinity of the Arax River, beyond which Iran begins. It is 17 kilometers from the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan in the west and 33 kilometers from the heartland of Azerbaijan in the east. Meghri is home to the only border checkpoint between Armenia and Iran, which will remain open until 2026 with funding from the EU and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is being modernized. A never-ending flood of Iranian trucks pours out of this border crossing, rolling mercilessly through Meghri to the north day and night. Now a bypass is to be built. There is a small border crossing in the other direction, where dozens of Armenians cross the river every day to buy food and consumer goods, all of which are much cheaper in Iran. Sometimes they bring alcohol in return. When we asked the mayor of Meghri about relations with Iran over dinner, he replied that they had found a formula for good neighborliness, and that was trade.
The Arax River, of biblical origin and the border between Iran and Armenia, Iran and Azerbaijan and Iran and Nakhichevan, is particularly special. It was here that Azerbaijani President Aliyev and his Iranian counterpart Raisi inaugurated a dam to generate electricity in May. On the return flight to Tehran, the helicopter carrying Raisi and other high-ranking Iranian politicians crashed south of Meghri. All the occupants were killed.
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