The NKR, on the other hand, is the no-frills version of a de facto state. It was formed as the result of a fight over an Armenian community in Azerbaijan that Armenia wanted back, and because the NKR isn't recognized as an official country anywhere, it's in a near-constant state of war. Bordering countries will use it as a buffer for their own war zones, and it's been like this for about a quarter-century.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Which is how you end up with a nation with way more landmines than people.

"If you bring an iPhone there, it will [indicate you're in] Azerbaijan," our source told us. "To make things even a little more bizarre, Nagorno-Karabakh is also known by a ton of other names, such as Artsakh, the Republic Of Artsakh, Karabakh, Karabagh, the Armenian Occupied Territories, Southwest Azerbaijan, the Republic Of Mountainous Karabakh, or the Liberated Territories, all depending on who exactly you ask."

They're working on things over there, though. They even have their own flag, albeit one that looks like it was designed by a 9-year-old in Microsoft Paint.

INchendio/iStock/Getty Images
It's hard to get international backing without anti-aliasing.

The NKR, on the other hand, has it even worse than Taiwan. Our source gave us a step-by-step guide to getting into the NKR, so we'll let him share it with you in his own words, because it would give us a headache to try to do it ourselves.

"The NKR is landlocked and has no functioning airport, so one must go overland. It borders Azerbaijan, Iran, and Armenia, but the border with Azerbaijan is closed due to the WW1-style trenches with a land-mine-filled no-man's-land."

Actual picture:

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images News/Getty Images
All the scenic beauty of rural France, circa 1917.

"The border with Iran is theoretically open, but there is no road there, so one must go to Armenia first in order to get to Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the mountains with Armenia are nearly impassable and there is only one road in and out of Nagorno-Karabakh: the Lachin corridor. The Lachin corridor is an incredibly long, windy mountain road that reaches up to 10,000 feet in altitude. ... The official English name of Nagorno-Karabakh is the Republic Of Mountainous Karabakh for a reason."

Via Change4peace.wordpress.com
For context, imagine most of Connecticut being accessible only via some sort of death maze.

"However, getting to Armenia in order to get to Nagorno-Karabakh is also really convoluted. The usual hub for flights in this region is in Istanbul, but the Turkish-Armenian border is also closed, meaning the only two countries left are Iran and Georgia (Armenia is also landlocked)."

"Getting a visa to Iran is really difficult for an American, so that meant that I had to fly into Tbilisi in Georgia, drive to Armenia, and then drive to Nagorno-Karabakh. The drive from Yerevan, Armenia, to Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh, takes six hours despite the seemingly short distance on a map because of the crazy high mountains. On one particularly bad 25-mile stretch, my guide said he once counted a little over 380 turns, many of which are almost 180 degrees and on the edges of cliffs."

Seriously, guys: hands on 10 and 2.

Long story short, there's a reason we didn't do this interview in person, and it's not only because of how hard corporate laughed when "the dick joke folks" asked for a travel budget.

We know it's landlocked and not technically a ship in the first place, but we're still betting that hotel sinks.

When the Soviets tried to take control of the region, they put new buildings and cities everywhere, but decades of on-again-off-again war and rebuilding have left a countryside filled with ruins. There used to be several roads out of the area, but years of fighting have reduced it to just the one -- and THAT one is a more recent addition.

"Way out in the middle of nowhere, the roads haven't been repaired since 1991," said our source. "The first person I saw was a giant picture of an Armenian military commander from California named Monte Melkonian. Beyond that? The primarily Azeri city of Agdam, completely and utterly 100 percent totally destroyed. It is actually surprising how thoroughly the entire city was just completely 100 percent destroyed. The ruins go right up to the road, but no one can enter the city because it is full of landmines."

KennyOMG/Wiki Commons
Population May 1993: 40,000
Population August 1993: 0

"On the road to Agdam, we literally pass through a historical fort. As in, the Soviets cared so little about this centuries-old fortress that they just knocked some holes in the walls and built a road right through the freaking fort like it wasn't even there."

Via Anonymous
In fairness, the inside of a building is pretty much guaranteed not to be a mine field. Probably.

"On one side of the parliament building you have that big, beautiful national square. On the other side of the parliament/hotel, and literally on the same freaking block as the national square, is the breakfast terrace, and my view at breakfast every morning was the remnants of war."

"Tigranakert is an ancient town near Agdam that has no modern-day population but is the most important historical/archaeological site in Nagorno-Karabakh. The big, historical fort and the excavation of a nearby church is, again, totally unguarded. For miles and miles in every direction, through the valley and up several mountains, everything had been completely burned to the ground."

The reason NKR is disputed is because it's essentially a bunch of Armenian people stuck living inside territory claimed by Azerbaijan. The result is a bunch of Hatfield-McCoy, Fleetwood Mac writing Rumours, Yankees-Red Sox level hatred. This gets even worse when you throw in different religious groups, most of which simply wanted refuge from all the fighting.

Via Sekuritaci.cz
Whoever could've guessed this would be an area with some conflict?

"On the road to Nagorno-Karabakh, I drove down a highway with a big pile of dirt on one side. Azeri snipers firing from the hills of the nearby Azeri exclave of Nakhchivan had been shooting random people in Armenia, so the big pile of dirt was there to provide cars on the highway cover from the sporadic gunfire."

Via Anonymous
Losing the scenic mountain views is a small price to not have to dodge bullets.

"When my mother made small talk with her hairdresser about our plans weeks before going, this little unassuming hairdresser suddenly exploded into a ball of fiery anger and started ranting about how terrible the Armenians were for stealing Karabakh and how awesome Azerbaijan was, while practically frothing at the mouth with hatred. Then she went back to dressing hair. The hairdresser, as it turns out, was from Azerbaijan but had actually fled years and years ago because she was Jewish and was being persecuted by Azerbaijan, which is a Muslim country. The Azeri population of Nagorno-Karabakh was kicked out/ethnically cleansed, and the Armenians suffered from the genocide in 1915. Coupled with 5,000 years of brutal warfare, various ethnic groups in this region hate each other. It's like racism on steroids, and most people don't understand it since everyone looks the same."

So we guess we're concluding that the whole "just live in a balloon" idea is probably best after all. Plus pooping would be really interesting.

Evan V. Symon is the interview-finder guy for Cracked. Have an awesome story you'd like to share? Hit up our tip line at tips@cracked.com today!

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