January 20th... (re- post from 2010)

January 20th, 2010- 20 years gone but the memories are as alive as they never been before.

I remember...

It was the middle of the night, January 19th 1990, tanks started passing by our house... I remember... My mother screamed so loud that I still hear the sound of her voice in my ears every time I think of that night... I was standing by the window, trying to make out the huge machines that were coming... Back then I didn't know what was going on, I was only 7 but I knew it was not good. My mother's concerned face wasn't good. She was afraid and so were many others that night.

That night Soviet troops crashed barricades storming the capital. There was shooting everywhere.

A relative who was out that whole night, was pale white when he returned home the next morning, remembers my mother. He couldn't utter a word. Only later did he speak of what he saw that night outside- there were tanks running over people he said, soldiers ruthlessly shooting everyone, there was no mercy, no nothing.

My mom remembers how the next day she went to buy bread and she saw a man's shoe full of blood.

Four days after the attack, a statement issued by Kremlin called the incident as "security operation to constrain hooliganism and Islamic extremism in Azerbaijan"- it was their way to deal with the rising Popular Front and all those who stood behind it.

The world remained silent to these attacks not like in the Balkans or elsewhere.

I remember...

Every year, on January 20th, schools would have "Black January" day commemorating those who fell. Songs of pain and hurt would be sang, poems of heroes would be read, people would remember and tears were

shed...

We would visit the Martyr's Square, putting red carnations on those who fell- innocent people who died that night for reasons that I only understand now- freedom, faith, independence...

I remember...