‘Ha, Brat’ in Baku? Armenian Delegate Says Soviet Slang Made Him ‘Forget What Country He’s In’—A Remark Critics Call Absurd

A small group of Armenian civil society representatives traveled to Baku on November 21–22, an initiative that tries to create contact between people from the two countries. Their visit became the subject of discussion in Armenia and abroad after one of the members described moments in Azerbaijan’s capital that felt strangely familiar. At the same time, their comments raised concern that these short guided trips could create misleading ideas about Azerbaijan, its leadership, and the country’s real situation behind the official façade.

One of the participants, Areg Kochinyan, said the sense of closeness in everyday behavior was unexpected. “They pick up the phone and say, ‘ha, brat,’ and you get the feeling the people next to you are Armenians — for a moment you forget what country you’re in.”

The phrase “ha, brat” roughly means “yes, brother.” Brat is a Russian word for “brother,” and although neither Armenian nor Azerbaijani, it remains widely used in both countries as leftover slang from the Soviet era. Kochinyan explained that hearing this familiar Soviet-era expression — along with observing recognizable body language and street interactions — made certain moments in Baku feel similar to what he sees in Yerevan, even as the political reality between the two nations remains sharply divided.

Another participant, Samvel Meliksetyan, also described moments that felt familiar, but offered a broader explanation. Traveling, he said, gives a different perspective from what people hear online or in the media. “These visits are important, because it’s truly one thing to learn something from the informational field, and another thing to see the country with your own eyes, to see the similarities,” he said. According to him, this familiarity was noticeable everywhere: “You can’t program similarities so that during Armenians’ visits people act very familiar — sometimes you even forget whether you’re in Yerevan or in Baku. Indeed, the way people dress is similar, the ways they interact. Of course, there are differences — music, cuisine, and so on.”

However, Meliksetyan also gave a sharply different message when comparing development in the two states. He argued that Azerbaijan had made faster changes in the last thirty years, and that Armenia must recognize this difference. “If we stay only in the informational field — they said something, we must absolutely respond and assert ourselves — but in reality, on the ground, in these 30 years Azerbaijan has changed much more than Armenia, and this is one of the reasons why Armenia is in this situation today, why everything that happened in 2020–2023 occurred,” he said.

He suggested that Armenian officials should visit Baku as well. “I think that employees of Armenia’s, especially Yerevan’s municipality, and politicians in general, should visit Baku, see the infrastructural work carried out in that country, the model of urban development, then come back to Armenia and work for a few years without talking, with their heads down.”

Meliksetyan added that seeing Azerbaijan in person could help Armenians understand how the two countries ended up in very different positions. “This is very important. To emerge from this abstract bubble and find yourself in that reality, and try to learn lessons from what has happened, because in 30 years Azerbaijan has indeed built a state where, of course, there are many major shortcomings, but in various spheres there are also achievements that we lack. This helps us understand why we are in this situation today.”

While the visitors emphasized how certain everyday details felt familiar, their remarks also show a larger issue: these controlled trips can create an appearance of normal contact, even though deep political problems remain unresolved, and even though tens of thousands of Armenians from Artsakh were forcibly displaced in 2023. The friendly moments described by the participants do not reflect the realities faced by Armenians on the ground, nor do they erase Azerbaijan’s long record of anti-Armenian policy, repression, and destruction of Armenian heritage.

The visit demonstrates how easily surface-level impressions can blur deeper political and human rights issues. It also shows how carefully organized programs can push selected narratives, especially when civil society members are taken to pre-planned locations and shown only what the host state wants them to see.

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