As the thaw in the frozen conflicts of Georgia began to freeze over again, with Moscow redrawing the map and stationing its forces deep inside Georgia, I travelled south to Armenia to investigate if similar bloodshed could happen along the other unresolved frontiers of the Caucasus. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Armenians and Azeris had fought a savage war over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, inside the newly independent Azerbaijan.

When the conflict petered out unresolved in 1994, more than 17,000 people had been killed, 55,000 wounded and hundreds of thousands displaced. With the proximity of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and Russia as an ally of Armenia, while Turkey and possibly Iran are backing Azerbaijan, the region remains volatile.

In central Yerevan, there were rumours of a new war. Several hundred people had gathered to protest. The crowd shouted out the country’s name and the leaders bellowed through megaphones about what the opposition would do when it took power. I talked to Raz. He liked to think of himself as quite “cool” and had just finished his military service, engaged in action along the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh. He knew what it was like to be on the faultlines of the Caucasus. He spoke slowly, precisely. “Let me tell you what I saw when I was on the frontlines in Nagorno-Karabakh. You know, every day there is ­shooting.”

How much? He paused for a second and reflected. “A lot. During the election crisis, we heard the amount of shooting beginning to rise in intensity. It grew louder and heavier. And then we saw them. There was a group of Azeri officers, wearing many stars to show their seniority, that attacked our position.

“We repelled them. But it’s coming. Sooner or later there will be war here. I’m not sure when. I don’t know what the war in Georgia means for Armenia. But then again – do you know what it means for Britain?”