The Republic of Armenia is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, Kurdistan to the southwest, and then Iran and Nakhchivan to the south.
September 26th, 1983. Yerevan, Armenian SSR.
Anahit Nazaretyan was asleep at her home, being almost 4:30 AM. Noises and military boots on her street made her wake up, along a phone call that made her to worry about her future.
"Who is calling at this time? Almost 4:15, and people can't respect sleeptime..."
"Anahit...I'm Arisha! Can you follow my instructions?"
"Arisha..." -she yawned- "It's too early..."
"Don't worry. But I have important news for you. The nuclear war has started! Alfred has began to sent missiles. Leave Yerevan, NOW!!"
"OK, Arisha! Hope you are safe!"
Anahit took a small bag, packed it with some clothes and food, and fleed her apartment, when the police tried to evacuate the city.
On Doomsday only Yerevan and the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant were hit. Large amounts of refugees entered Armenia, and radiation brought illness, radioactive rain and death. However, it was not as bad as it could have been, for the mountains kept out most of the damage from elsewhere, and a government was set up in the city of Leninakan/Gyumri fairly rapidly.
November 30th, 1983. Leninakan/Gyumri , Armenian SSR.
After some days of marching, and rumours of a goverment on Leninakan/Gyumri, Anahit found that the rumours were true, and joined the city, along being part of the provisional board.
But not everything would be so peaceful in the territories under Armenian control...
The protests and rioting began in the small city of Charentsavan on the morning of 27 February 1985, due to a steep increase in the transportation costs of food from other places. They quickly spread to other towns across the country. By the next afternoon, there were disturbances in almost all districts of Armenia, with shops closed and public transport not functioning.
In the days that followed there was looting and destruction. For many months, there was discussion about how something so violent could occur in Armenia.
Overwhelmed by the looting, the government declared a state of emergency, put the city of Charentsavan under martial law and restored order albeit with the use of force. Some people used firearms for self-defense, to attack other civilians and/or to attack the military, but the number of dead soldiers and police came nowhere near the number of civilian deaths. The repression was particularly harsh in the the poor neighborhoods of Armenia.
The initial official pronouncements said 276 people had died, though the actual total is believed to be far higher than that.
The government suspended constitutional rights, and there were several days during which the city was in chaos, with restrictions, food shortages, militarization, burglaries, and the persecution and murder of innocent people.
The clearest consequence of this chaos was political instability. The following February, the army was called to contain similar riots in other cities, and again in June, when rising of transportation costs ended in riots in Charentsavan and other cities. In 1985 there were two attempted coups d'état, in February and November, but they were put down. Armenia's government was accused of corruption and removed from power. The new government declared Armenia independent on July 8, 1986.
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Labor, Socialism, Revival (GotW x 1983: Doomsday)
Science FictionDoomsday destroyed almost all the USSR, but in Siberia, the country managed to recover...
