In the summer of 1996, there had been an unsuccessful attempt to kill a busload of 21 writers en route to a poetry conference in Armenia. At two in the morning, while most of his passengers were sleeping, the driver of the bus attempted to steer the bus off a cliff near the Heyran Pass. "When the driver tried to jump out to save himself, a passenger grabbed the wheel and steered the bus back onto the road." The driver tried it a second time, "diving out of the vehicle just as it careened toward the edge of the 1000-foot free fall." The bus hit a boulder and stopped, saving the lives of 21 writers. The driver ran away. The passengers were taken to a nearby Caspian town by authorities, interrogated and warned "to discuss the event with no one".