These are the words of Taguhi, the wife of Manuk Manukyan, a volunteer in the war. Talking about the war is painful for her. She has seen three wars in her life, the last of which took her husband’s life.
She remembers September 27 very well. She was at work. She called the house, the children said there was a war.
“My husband came home at night: he was called to the military commissariat. On October 18, the conscription order came and they took him away.”
Mrs. Taguhi convinced her husband not to go: she says that from the very beginning she had a premonition that something bad would happen.
“I knew — my inner feeling never deceived me — I knew that he would go and would not come back.”
At first he was in Kapan, then in Berdzor until the end. He did not tell the family the truth. They didn’t call often: they knew it was dangerous.
The 50-year-old volunteer was killed on November 6 by a mortar attack.
“That day I could not sleep all night. I couldn’t find my place all day: I didn’t understand what was happening to me.”
The family learned about Manuk’s death on November 7, but everyone in the village already knew about it.
“Behind my husband’s nephew, the children of the village said that Tigran’s uncle was killed. He did not believe. I went to my husband’s brother’s house to find out about his son, he was also serving. There was no color on anyone’s face, they lied saying that he was seriously injured, I didn’t believe, I said Manuk was killed.”
Manuk Manukyan was the father of three children, the youngest is his 10-year-old son. No one told the children the news of their father’s death, but the mother says they understood very quickly.
The child was a “good builder”. Many houses of the village are built by him. “And we were left without a home. Now I am trying to build the house through others.”
The middle daughter, who listened to her mother the whole time, added:
“Dad had to do everything with his own hands, he had drawn the drawing in advance.”
He will not build the house with his own hands, but the drawing will remain the same as the father wanted.
Ani Gevorgyan