A 106-year-old Armenian woman guarding her home with an AKM, 1990.

A 106-year-old Armenian woman guarding her home with an AKM, 1990.

A 106-year-old Armenian woman guards a rifle in front of her house in the village of Dag, near the town of Gori, southern Armenia. Armed conflict ensued in nearby Nagorno-Karabakh, with Azerbaijan also claimed territory in Azerbaijan. The Nagorno-Karabakh War displaced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.

It is a tough elderly Armenian woman. At the age of 10, she lived through the Hamidian massacres of 1894–1896. Then, at the age of 30, his people went through a second round of Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman government (1915–1923). After a few years, Armenia was invaded by the Turks and with the end of the war, Armenia was incorporated into the Soviet Union so amicably. Once that period ended and she was an older woman ready to pass away after a life full of hard lives and violence, Armenia became involved in a very bloody war with her next-door neighbors Azerbaijanis. It puts all our "problems" in perspective.

In the 1920s, the Soviet government established the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region - where 95 percent of the population is in Azerbaijan - Azerbaijan. Under Bolshevik rule, fighting between the two countries was halted, but as the Soviet Union began to decline, its hold over Armenia and Azerbaijan grew. In 1988, the Nagorno-Karabakh legislature passed a resolution to join Armenia despite the region's legal location within the borders of Azerbaijan. As the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the autonomous region officially declared independence. War broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region, causing around 30,000 casualties and hundreds of thousands of refugees. By 1993, Armenia controlled Nagorno-Karabakh and occupied 20 percent of the surrounding Azerbaijan region. In 1994, Russia implemented a cease-fire, which has continued since. 230,000 Armenians from Azerbaijan and 800,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia and Karabakh have been displaced as a result of the conflict.

The gun the elderly Armenian woman is carrying is not an AK-47 or AK-74, it has an AKM. Unlike the AK-74 the gas block is slow. The magazine is curved to accept a 7.62x39mm round, not a 5.45x39mm round that fires the AK-74. The muzzle brake is of AKM design, an AK-74 is not used. Introduced into service with the Soviet Army in 1959, the AKM is a prevalent version of the entire AK range of firearms and has gained widespread use, with most member states of the former Warsaw Pact and its African and Asian countries being widely exported. Have got. And produced in many other countries.