Wednesday, April 15 2015 08:48

67-year old Jasmine Ghazaryan lives with her 80-year-old sister-in-law, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren in a clay hovel in Noyakert village of Ararat region. An unfinished huge brick construction links on to the house - the Ghazaryans are trying to maintain the unfit house expanding it at the same time.

 

Some two years ago the village was supplied with drinking-water – though it is available only from several taps in the main street of Noyakert. The water is carried in buckets. Before the Noyakert residents used to buy water imported in cisterns. The Ghazaryans use a special pump to get irrigation water from a well. Seven years ago the village started getting supplied with gas – before the villagers would heat their houses with firewood and dried dung…

 

 “I was born in Buzluk village of Shahumyan district. I spent my childhood and the best years of my life in that corner which was surrounded by wonderful nature. Though almost 50 years have passed since then, I can still see the home grounds in my dreams”, says the woman.

 

After getting married, Jasmine moved to her husband’s place in Bigumsarum village of Mir Bashir district (currently Tartar district in Azerbaijan - editor). That was district’s only Armenian village where no Azerbaijani lived. Jasmine would grow cotton; her husband – Kolya Ghazaryan – was a driver. The family had cattle, too.

 

 “In a word, we led quite a peaceful and good life. We would pay visits to each other, help each other. There never was any difference between the Armenians and the Azerbaijani. We became foes only after 1988. In January 1989 we had arranged a swap with an Azerbiajani family from Noyakert and we moved here, though we did not manage to bring most of our belongings…”

 

The woman explains why her family had lost most of their inventory – the Ghazaryans were one the last families to leave the village.  Back in those days she was already in Yerevan with her sick husband. The Azerbaijani from the neighbouring village plundered the house in front of her sister-in-law and daughter-in-law.  Nevertheless, Jasmine does not complain saying that they stayed alive and that was the most important. “Of course, our Azerbaijani neighbours were trying to persuade us not to leave, they were saying everything would come round, they would offer their help. However, that was already impossible…”

 

Pointing at the cracked walls of the house the woman remembers her solid stone house she left in Azerbaijan, a house that was not as crumbling and tumble-down as the one they live in now. “After years of effort this place looks like a house. Back in those days it seemed to be a barn”, says Jasmine Ghazaryan.

 “When we arrived, life in Armenia was quite good. We were well received. Can you imagine that my husband remained at hospital for half a year? Even in those days I did not live the hardships I am living now. Even then we had money, we had everything. Things turned upside-down in 1991…”

 

In the past years the woman used to work in the garden, she would grow fruit, vegetables and keep cattle. She was a kindergarten teacher for 15 years, and then she worked as a school care-taker. That is how they earned their living which was not that bad. Now elderly Jasmine suffers from diabetes and hypertension. She cannot work in the garden anymore. “No one will employ a pensioner even as a janitor…”

 

 

“Every spring I would prune the trees. This year I am planning to hire working men to do that. I have just asked the neighbor to pay for our land lease – I will need to pay the workers. Our neighbor has had our farm for several years”, says Jasmine showing at the next door.

 

The Ghazaryan’s money, which the family had been saving up for years and then placed with USSR Sberbank, was burnt. The woman has no idea who acquired the money. “Nowadays people born before 1929 get back some miserable percentage of their placements. How many more years does my sister-in-law have to live to get the money back?” says Jasmine who is completely lost. In her turn, 80-year-old Marusya Ghazaryan, who worked in cotton fields for her whole life, says she is ready to live like a beggar as long as she can take care of her nephew’s children on her pension.

 

Jasmine Ghazaryan’s son Arthur is not very successful in his job. He could not get employed in the village so he left for Russia. He has been there for half a year now but still has not sent money to his family. “Russia is said to be a place of hard life, too now”, says the woman. “My daughter-in-law does not work for there is no job. We live on our pension which is 48.000 AMD. Most of the money is spent on community facilities and bread. All the children go to school, they are good pupils. Still the children are to be dressed and shoed and developed”, tells the woman.

 

Jasmine says that her husband Kolya would rather stay in his fatherland to the end of his chapter. He did not want to leave with the other men trying to defend the village. The moment he realized the departure was unavoidable, he came down with a heart attack. “I was afraid to leave him in an Azerbaijani hospital, so I took him to Yerevan. Ofelia Vasilyevna – a wonderful doctor- set him on his legs. She did her best for us refugees and we did not pay a penny. No one knew that after hospital discharge my husband would have a second attack”, says the woman.

 

Upon their arrival in Yerevan, Jasmine’s mother-in-law passed away in 1991- before her husband’s death. “She was in her declining years at least. My husband was only 50. I lost him for he had lost his fatherland. He could not live away from his ancestral home”, says Jasmine.  

 

 

Despite all the hardships and miseries, Jasmine keeps hoping for a better future in which her son and daughter-in-law will have good jobs. “I do hope they will be able to provide their children with everything. The only thing that matters is that children must be dressed and shoed. I do not need anything. Every time I have high blood pressure I can only think of the children. What will happen to them if I pass away and we lose the pension?” wonders the woman.

 

 

Note: the material has been prepared with input from International Alert within the framework of the EPNK project “Unheard Voices” financed by the EU. The journalists are responsible for the content of the material which does not necessarily reflect the outlook of International Alert, ЕPNK and our contributors.